You do realize the twice as good is referencing about the amount of work that was put in right? Coats isn't saying that Obama is twice as good as a president but that Obama is the exception to the rule of the African American experience. That the average African American starts with far less income and wealth as the average white along with a set of systematic disadvantages.

The reparations debate isn't an attempt to collect damages from slaveholders.

I thought I'd post this here as a little addition to Coat's article of how systematic discrimination was/is a problem long after slavery

https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news...1-9d267176ac20

When an estate owner dies, it's standard practice for that to be passed on to his offspring, but to say that maybe a little should be passed on to the offspring of those who were exploited, in the most despicable way, out of their share is an injustice?

Am I getting that right?

Forcing someone to work for you under the threat of force and not paying them is theft, full stop. Time and labor have very tangible value, that's why people get paid to do things they wouldn't otherwise want to do.

For instance: Walmart had to pay $225 million to workers for not giving them lunch breaks. Did everyone involved in this case make a catastrophic mistake because a lunch break isn't tangible property that can be returned?

That doesn't sound correct. We have a whole category of statutory law and subsequent cases that agree our legal system is fully capable of adjudicating wage theft. Let's not pretend black activists just made up a crime; despite your navel gazing about it, we're all pretty confident theft can involve more than just taking a physical thing.

See above: this is not unprecedented. No modern day German was part of the Imperial German Army that invaded France in 1914 and yet up until 2010 Germany was still repaying WWI reparations, despite the fact both Germany and France have robust immigration systems, highly transient populations, and the reparations are for something a small number of their own ancestors did to their other ancestors. Americans are still paying the descendants of Pacific Island areas like the Marshall Islands and the Biniki Atoll for displacement due to nuclear testing despite the fact Americans have significant amounts of immigration and the fact huge percentages of American taxpayers weren't alive for Operation Crossroads.

I question your sincerity that slavery is abhorrent when you're arguing their descendants were better off for it.

The incredible part of a reparations discussion is how the people who argue against use the same reasoning to extol the wonders of capitalism.

Like, "You're saying people should profit from the work another tangentially related group of people did 100s of years ago? Well that just seems ridiculous!"

Yes, yes it does.

Isn't this arguing the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin?

What realistic chance is there of any meaningful bill/program passing? What form would it take?

????????????

I just think the whole concept of reparations at this point completely distracts from dealing with other issues.

I think you people need to get back to talking about the Pimps Up Ho's Down proposal here.

What's the problem there, BB?

Ahha wait, so the bloodlines of the slavers are extinct now? Wtf are you evening talking about?

Switzerland can bankroll the reparations.

Which issues would you like to discuss instead?

One pertinent issue to contemporary American politics might be something like "the persistence poverty among black people in the US." For instance, according to the Census Bureau, ~8.5% of black families lived in what they describe as 'chronic poverty' (chronic: living in poverty for more than 36 months when studied during the last decade; check out their poverty thresholds here). As a comparison point, less than 2% of white American families lived in a state of chronic poverty during the same period measured.

So, we have an issue of a certain group of Americans living in poverty for a long period of time. Relevant, contemporary, and unless you have some libertarian/anarchist/right wing prior assumptions about the role of government, we have general consensus that alleviating poverty for its citizens is a duty of the state.

OK. So we have AN ISSUE.

Now, back to reparations: am I to believe that many of the forms of proposed reparations, that is, cash transfers from the government to black people for generations of theft/enslavement/refusal to protect black personage, property, legal rights, etc. through the entire Jim Crow era -- am I to believe giving cash to people is not a solution to the relevant issue we have here -- that black people are significantly more likely to be living in poverty? Would you want to means test the reparations? I'm listening. Are we afraid we might overcompensate successful blacks whose families immigrated after slavery; are we afraid of undercompensating the descendants of indentured white servants, or the generations of still-poor whites whose labor value was undercut by the enslavement of blacks and proved extremely detrimental to their ability to accumulate wealth? I'm listening to that too.

None of this sounds like a distraction though.

The stolen art and railroad posts are extremely compelling ideas.

Combine it with how if a business buys another business they also buy legal responsibility for anything it did wrong then we are starting to form a really solid argument imo.

So entire industries today benefitted from slavery but the economy in general benefitted today, so is the best argument to target fairly indiscriminately? Just a general tax on corporate profits or a couple points on the top rate of income tax etc?

Furthermore given the institutional racism America has now true reparations couldn't possibly be a one off wealth transfer, right?

It would be something like black people get free college, they get a lump sum when they turn 18, they have a lawyer fund so they don't need to use state attorneys, they get half their mortgage paid for them and something like half their business loans get written off after two years. Along with an initial one off lump sum to every black American alive today. Then annually the government just picks up the tab from general taxation.

Conceptually, no idea on the fine detail, but true reparations would have to last generations to mirror exactly the suffering they have felt from slavery and slavery adjacent prejudice right?

On a tangent, Coats, at least in my opinion, doesn't look at reparations as strictly a policy issue.

To him reparations is something more. It's a redemptive act, or a way for America to show that's it's truly broken away from its racist past and faced head on the actual crimes in history it's committed. I think that was the crux of the issue of the disagreement between Social Democratic supporters of Sanders and Coats.

Social Democratic supporters of Sanders said outright reparations might not pass but "stealth" reparations via universalist social policies such as giving flat rate benefits that disproportionately help the poorest and by extension African Americans would work by appealing to whites as well.

Coat's response was that racism will always attempt to undermine such policies because the racist tendencies that broke up The Great Society's liberalism still aren't resolved.

Easy way to handle reparations:

How about reparations for all the descendants from women that werent allowed to work or own businesses?

Maybe even the descendants from the Irish that where forced to work for peanuts to survive?

How about the Chinese, French, Mexicans, etc?

My viking ancestors where treated as savages when they discovered America therefor i demand reparations... They also probably treated the natives horribly bad so im probably just gonna pass the reparations right along but who cares right? Im due for some sweet reparations for something that happened to someone else that i share a lineage with...

You should just sit quietly and let the grown ups talk.

Or you can actually challenge something? But i guess then you run the risk of either being wrong or not fitting in.. For someone like you thats probably the worst thing ever so you just try to be funny on someone elses behalf and keep the illusion that you are something...

This can be summed up as "If we let the blacks have justice where will it stop?"

what does voluntary capitalism have to do with forced social justice in the form of reparations.

if a charity group wants to give out reps for slaves then I am all for it, more power to them.

That's why I want to steal from BitchiBee. If a charity wants to pay him back for the things I steal, more power to them.

go ahead and try this is why I own so many guns

theres a difference between individual justice and social justice, reparations fall clearly into the latter catagory

Nope I just stole your guns. Good luck calling the forced reparations service aka police. Get Goodwill to donate you a new TV. More power to them if they do.