The Atlantic: The Case for Reparations

[Going Commando]

I'm a little conflicted about the article. This writer made a name for himself with this piece. I heard about it on NPR yesterday after I read it in here. It's a really impressive piece of work. To me, the real value of it is in the comprehensive but digestible history of injustice it provides. I don't love that it uses the reparations debate to frame the article, because it makes it seem less serious TBH. But I do see it as an effective ploy to capture the attention of an otherwise indifferent white audience. And if LKB and Predicto are right that the only people talking about reparations any more are hostile white conservatives using the topic to piss off their like-minded audiences, then I guess it can't be bad for a talented black writer to snatch the initiative of the debate back and reframe the arguments.

Potent as this article was, it didn't really convince me of the necessity or justice of reparations, much less the feasibility. I can't get past the feeling that the existence of a monolithic black community and white community are myths. I think they're things academics created to discuss macro social patterns and ideas but they don't really reflect the reality of American lives or the microscopic level of American neighborhoods. I don't even belong to a community and I think my life is like a lot of other people's. I move fairly frequently and don't really form connections with my neighbors beyond what politeness dictates. American lives are mobile, fragmented, and amorphous. It's not like Europe here. We move and change lives, I might not live anywhere near my family and it takes special effort to keep any sort of connection with them alive. I feel almost NO connection to any sort of American community writ large. And I certainly don't feel a connection to the communities of the past that owned slaves or engineered cities based on racial discrimination. I don't feel culpable. I'm a white person, from the South, and I am atypical in my interest in history. I'm even pretty sure I'm somehow related to John Cabell Breckinridge, the Democrat who ran against Lincoln in 1860 on the Southern ticket. If even I don't feel this kind of culpability and connection, then I bet most white people don't.

I think that's what Predicto is talking about when he said Americans don't believe in collective debt/guilt. It's pretty natural right? I think it's all part of the melting pot identity we formed out of necessity. When an immigrant society has to conduct many waves of mass assimilations and migrations, communities become fragmented and a connection to the past gets dropped.

[Larry]

Think Steve rather summed up my opinion.

Admittedly, I haven't even attempted to read the article, because what I'm seeing in this thread is a lot of people telling me that the article lists all kinds of ways blacks have been treated badly in this country, (and I already know that), and then trying to make the leap from there to "therefore the white race owes the black race something, for slavery". (A conclusion which I believe is impossible to make.)

If the author wants to counter the meme currently being pushed, of "racism hasn't existed for generations, therefore we need to make discrimination legal, again", then I suspect that he might have a very compelling argument.

[Springfield]

I'm not sure this really relates to the article but mcqueen made me think of something that I was talking to my wife about. She's pregnant with our first kid. He's going to be born into a post 9/11 world. The most major world event from my life will have almost zero impact on his world view. Kind of like Kennedy's assassination and Vietnam had zero impact on my world view. Russian war games and the Cold War? I don't hate Russia (other than what I've experienced in my lifetime). My parents didn't have Perl Harbor to frame their lives and my grandparents didn't have slavery in their life.

I grew up in a world where black people and other minorities were some of my best friends. I idolized black sports figures growing up. I am a huge fan of most music and a lot of that music is either performed by black people or was influenced by black people generations ago. It's just too late in the game for reparations.

If reparations were to be paid, it should have been forced on the Confederates after the Civil War (like it was on West Germany after WW2). It shouldn't be forced on a generation of people who feel no connection to past atrocities (and many have no connection). It shouldn't be forced on a generation that, quite frankly, has much larger problems at hand.

[Jumbo]

Good stuffs, youse guys. Really.

[Kosher Ham]

Good stuffs, youse guys. Really.

 

I swear, it doesn't even seem like the off-season regarding these recent threads. We may have found an alternate universe. I am loving this.

[Larry]

I swear, it doesn't even seem like the off-season regarding these recent threads. We may have found an alternate universe. I am loving this.

 

I suspect that, after the draft, everybody who wanted a fight moved to Stadium. 

[Going Commando]

Two positive things I think this article does:

1.) Really tells the story of racial injustice in a powerful way, from slavery through the civil rights era to today. There is just a lot of great information in it. The scope is what impresses me so much. I think the lessons are important to stop and prevent these injustices from happening moving forward.

2.) Even if reparations are never really going to be on the table, if you get a bunch of people, white and black, thinking about the history of racial injustice, we can be serious and think about the goal of uplifting impoverished blacks. This article puts their plight into the zeitgeist. Who knows? Maybe something tangible will come from it? That's a worthy accomplishment.

[JoeWolf990]

Did anyone actually read the article? I did and while he asked for reparations, he never specifically stated what it was.

More than that and the great examples he gave of white supremacy's effects on black lives, he just wanted a study done to see the effects white supremacy has had on the lives of Black Americans. That would be very impactful.

THe folks who ran here talking about "how much will it cost" did not read the article.

Look, I didn't own slaves. I wouldn't want to own slaves. My dad didn't own slaves, my grandfather didn't own slaves and I doubt his grandfather did either.Hell, I doubt they even took advantage of blacks by offering ****ty contracts on homes in ghettos.

you missed the point of the article

I don't want to pay a dime towards reparations. I'm sorry that the world hasn't been fair to black people and still isn't all rainbows and unicorns today but I don't feel at all responsible for that.

of course not, white people who benefit from the white supremacist system in this country and do not want that place challenged, will NEVER want to even listen to a conversation on reparations.

Its beent he same way for many years so this is not a surprise.

This writer made a name for himself with this piece.

Ta-Nehsi Coates did not need that article to "make a name for himself." He has been known for years and has written for the Atlantic for about 5 years.

[Springfield]

I missed the point of the article?

The point of the article was that we can't even have a conversation in Washington about reparations because it gets shot down. That the white establishment has not allowed a political discussion because it's been shot down every time. That even to this day, the whites will not allow black people to get on even ground with them.

I just think it's hogwash. I don't believe for one second that a black guy making 100k a year lives in a neighborhood full of whites making 30k per year. The author of this article claims it's true.

So, the author wants to have a discourse about reparations. Do it. I'd love to hear some ideas that are fair. I'd love to hear ideas that empowers black people that don't cost me anything. I'd love to hear ideas that doesn't cost Italians, French, Spanish, Polish, Jewish and many other white people who came to this country long after slavery ended. I'd love to hear ideas of reparations that don't simultaneously punish white people.

[JoeWolf990]

I don't believe for one second that a black guy making 100k a year lives in a neighborhood full of whites making 30k per year. The author of this article claims it's true.

have you done research on that? This guy did the research and found that to be true. You can read the book here and then form your own study to see if he is wrong

Its always good when people who have not done the required research and then decide to shoot down the research an academic did because they "do not believe its true."

I'd love to hear ideas that empowers black people that don't cost me anything.I'd love to hear ideas that doesn't cost Italians, French, Spanish, Polish, Jewish and many other white people who came to this country long after slavery ended. I'd love to hear ideas of reparations that don't simultaneously punish white people.

Any by white people, you mean the United States of America, right? Thats the point of his article. And why you either unintentionally, or intentionally, chose to interpret it the way you did.

The "Irish, Italian, Polish, etc" excuse is always funny to me because it ignores that those groups benefit off white supremacy because they have been accepted into the white race of America and take in many of the benefits. Black people have not been accepted as white and do not get the same treatment.

And before you say "well what about Latinos, Asians, etc," those groups were not brought here as slaves and put in the American caste system.

The only group with a bigger gripe is the Native Americans.

[Springfield]

I agree that the only group with a bigger gripe is Native Americans.

That's about the only thing it seems we agree upon. I get the impression from you that it's very much an us vs them mentality. Republicans vs democrats, Redskins vs Cowboys, black people vs America. I don't see it that way, maybe I can't because of my skin color. I see black people as part of America. I see black people as a part of this... thing. Like I've stated in my earlier posts, some of my best friends are black. If they are wronged, because of race, then I am offended. There have been times where I've certainly felt ashamed by the actions of white people towards minorities of any race. In the same light, I've felt ashamed that some black people I know can act equally as racist. I digress...

What to you would be fair reparations JoeWolf? I'm open to discussion. I have my opinions on the matter, but like any scholarly person, my opinions can changed based on new data and input towards the subject.

[Duckus]

God. This thing is a ****ing novel. Halfway through and had to take like three breaks. Fascinating article so far.

[Going Commando]

"Whiteness" has always been hard earned no matter the group.

Some Asians like Chinese and Indian ethnicities and Koreans actually assimilated rapidly. 19th century Chinese immigrants weren't really better off than the slaves were. They lived in utter wretchedness and died like flies and were viewed as subhumans too. They were clannish and even more peculiar to whites and lived in enclaves too. But for a host of reasons, they've assimilated and obtained pretty good status by and large while Blacks and Hispanics didn't. Big part of it is because a lot of East Asians are slavish about assimilating and education and property ownership are core values even in their impoverished communities whereas they are not in poor Black and Hispanic communities.

It's a damn quagmire that I doubt we even know how to begin to fix.

You know the fundamental basis for white supremacy? Numbers. As much as has been made of demographic changes, there are still sooooo many more white people than anyone else. Americans of European descent with white skin. And that'll probably be the case for a long time. Like perpetuity. The path to status obtainment for minorities has ALWAYS been to act and live like mainstream whites until they're accepted as whites (orginially Anglo Saxons). So how do Blacks and Hispanics obtain status without doing that? Taking the same path as each wave of immigrants that obtained "whiteness" before them--Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians, then Irish, then Italians and Poles and Lithuanians and Slavs all of the other Eastern Europeans and now Chinese and Indians and Koreans. I doubt it's possible. There will never be enough blacks in America to change the demographics to redefine "whiteness." If anything, Blacks today have an oddly disproportionately powerful cultural impact on mainstream America given they're only 12.6% of the actual population. For Hispanics, it would take soooo much more immigration to redefine whiteness on Hispanic terms. There are 50 million hispanics in the country and that's still only 16.4% of the population. The supremacy of White culture is entrenched so long as the country is overwhelmingly white. Can't beat them? Join them--the method of every ethnic group that successfully assimilated and obtained white status.

We've been the point where the big majority of "white America" stopped excluding blacks based solely on having dark colored skin. Overt racism has been one of our strongest taboos for my entire life. It ruins and disgraces a powerful, wealthy, white public figure if it becomes widely known. "Whiteness" isn't mostly about having light colored skin any more. Nor is the status of "whiteness" vouchsafed by having light colored skin. So if it isn't about skin color, wtf is it even about any more?

[twa]

 Stevemcqueen1 ya obviously don't live in Texas,we got whitey surrounded and outnumbered.

 

 

wtf is it even about anymore is a good question

 

 

 

[JoeWolf990]

I get the impression from you that it's very much an us vs them mentality. Republicans vs democrats, Redskins vs Cowboys, black people vs America. I don't see it that way, maybe I can't because of my skin color. I see black people as part of America.

you have a very incorrect impression. I dont see this as black people vs. America, I see this as America finally admitting their is this lingering issue that has taken place for about 400 years that holds back a group of people. This is not a black problem, this is an American problem. If you see it as an American problem, then you will realize that this all needs to be put out there. The impact of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, predatory loans, etc is an American problem that needs to be discussed.

No friend, I see this as an American problem, but far too long these issues have only been seen as a "black problem."

 

I see black people as a part of this... thing. Like I've stated in my earlier posts, some of my best friends are black. If they are wronged, because of race, then I am offended. There have been times where I've certainly felt ashamed by the actions of white people towards minorities of any race. In the same light, I've felt ashamed that some black people I know can act equally as racist. I digress...

this the big problem, this racism isnt a white person says a bad thing to a black person. Its far beyond that. This is how the damn country was established and amassed its great wealth.

 

What to you would be fair reparations JoeWolf? I'm open to discussion. I have my opinions on the matter, but like any scholarly person, my opinions can changed based on new data and input towards the subject.

I have no idea how America should award reparations, but I would like for their to be a legit conversation with people who really have a solution. I would like government studies done, and I would like people to finally accept that a groups of people have been wronged.

 

19th century Chinese immigrants weren't really better off than the slaves were. They lived in utter wretchedness and died like flies and were viewed as subhumans too.

outside of the whole they can earn a living, not fear their family being separated because of how a person feels that particular day, worry about rape, beatings and... um be slaves. Words effing fail me.

 

Big part of it is because a lot of East Asians are slavish about assimilating and education and property ownership are core values even in their impoverished communities whereas they are not in poor Black and Hispanic communities.

See this is how I can tell the article wasnt read properly. Black people were about property ownership in Chicago as well, and other parts of the country. Unfortunately, some unscrupulous business people -- with the help of the federal government -- still managed to screw them. But of course, keep on blaming black people for their place.

I will not speak on Latino people, but I am sure they have issues with this stuff as well.

It's a damn quagmire that I doubt we even know how to begin to fix.

 

You know the fundamental basis for white supremacy? Numbers. As much as has been made of demographic changes, there are still sooooo many more white people than anyone else. Americans of European descent with white skin. And that'll probably be the case for a long time. Like perpetuity. The path to status obtainment for minorities has ALWAYS been to act and live like mainstream whites until they're accepted as whites (orginially Anglo Saxons). So how do Blacks and Hispanics obtain status without doing that? Taking the same path as each wave of immigrants that obtained "whiteness" before them--Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians, then Irish, then Italians and Poles and Lithuanians and Slavs all of the other Eastern Europeans and now Chinese and Indians and Koreans. I doubt it's possible. There will never be enough blacks in America to change the demographics to redefine "whiteness." If anything, Blacks today have an oddly disproportionately powerful cultural impact on mainstream America given they're only 12.6% of the actual population. For Hispanics, it would take soooo much more immigration to redefine whiteness on Hispanic terms. There are 50 million hispanics in the country and that's still only 16.4% of the population. The supremacy of White culture is entrenched so long as the country is overwhelmingly white. Can't beat them? Join them--the method of every ethnic group that successfully assimilated and obtained white status.

We've been the point where the big majority of "white America" stopped excluding blacks based solely on having dark colored skin. Overt racism has been one of our strongest taboos for my entire life. It ruins and disgraces a powerful, wealthy, white public figure if it becomes widely known. "Whiteness" isn't mostly about having light colored skin any more. Nor is the status of "whiteness" vouchsafed by having light colored skin. So if it isn't about skin color, wtf is it even about any more?

White Supremacy is prevalent in South Africa despite Whites only being 10% of the population. Its not a damn numbers game. Its all about the past 400 years. I do not understand why it is so hard for some of you to get that through your heads.

Its running the 100 meters and one person starts at the 75 meter mark while another person starts 10 meters behind the starting line.

[TheItalianStallion]

I shake my head when I hear people say that our economy was built on the backs of slaves. Slavery HURT the economy. So did segregation, for that matter. It's not a coincidence that the South's economy has been taking off in recent decades now that slavery and segregation have been outlawed. 

[Popeman38]

Outside of the whole they can earn a living, not fear their family being separated because of how a person feels that particular day, worry about rape, beatings and... um be slaves. Words effing fail me.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the "Chinamen" brought over and used to expand westward were pretty much slaves. Not sure why there disposable nature is not somehow dastardly enough to merit discussion...

[Destino]

I'll just speak frankly, I'm tired of hearing about whites being the cause and culprit of all modern day problems in ethnic arguments lacking introspection. I speak as a Hispanic immigrant and I believe that ethnic communities will not thrive by constantly arguing that they should be viewed, however rightly, as victims. Humans rise and fall according to expectations and regardless of truth, identifying as a victim lowers those expectations and builds in an excuse for failure. Advocacy groups are needed to fight institutional racism, and thank God for them because many of the issues raised in this wonderful article would never have been defeated without leadership and community unity. We will, of course, continue to fight it but we must accept that we'll never see the finish line. Success for ourselves and our children however will never be achieved by pointing fingers or waiting for the world to finally be reorganized into a fair and just society.

[mcsluggo]

I was in Norfolk, VA this weekend, visiting the inlaws.   On both Saturday and Sunday I went out with my three daughters to a random Chesapeake bayside beach with my daughters, and after we dropped our towels, both days we meandered up the beach for a few miles , and then meandered back.

 

 

the first day we parked in a random neighborhood, and started at a fairly secluded beach.   Everyone was white, and not particularly hoity toity.   When we wandered north, we got to a section where 2/3 or more were black.   and in between there were lots of variations between the two.  

 

on Sunday we parked at public parking at a park with beach access.  IN the park most of the people were non-white.   just north of the park was an area where there were lots of whites and lots of blacks, AND within those groups, there was alot of race mixing.  When we kept meandering north there was a small area where almost everyone was white (and gave off a "wealthier" vibe than the day-1 beach).  and a bit north of there was a complete hodge podge of black white hispanic asian, with lots and lots of mingling (this was near a big fishing pier).

 

 

I found the self sorting dynamics kinda interesting.

[JoeWolf990]

He will be in the Sixth and I street Synagogue tonight to discuss the article, if anyone wants to go.

Here is Coates talking about his article in WaPo today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2014/06/12/ta-nehisi-coates-author-of-the-atlantics-june-cover-story-on-reparations-responds-to-four-common-arguments-against-them/