NYT: What Reparations for Slavery Might Look Like in 2019

[Going Commando]

15 hours ago, nonniey said:

So lets say my wife gets $80,000 and daughter get $80,000 this year but then we have another child next year. That child would not get anything? Or child born on 31 December would get the money but one born on 1 January would be **** of of luck?

 

If the reparations were to be cash payments to cover the promise of 40 acres and a mule, then the payments would have to be divided equally among the members of each estate of freed slaves from 1865.  Only people who are alive to submit a claim at a time the estate is divided would receive benefits.

 

This is one reason why I don't think that would be a great way to do it.  First, tracking down 11 million estates from 1865 for people who were enslaved and had minimal literacy and later were impoverished in many cases, and for generations, and who probably don't have much of a legal historical paper trail is an unfathomably difficult task.  Second, getting together tens of millions of claimants and authenticating their genealogies is the next impossible step.  A lot of poor black people don't have a government issued ID that can prove their own identity, and we'd be expecting them to fill out claims forms that would require them to demonstrate their genealogy going back 150 years?  It'd be creating a system where poor black people would almost certainly be excluded from a one time payout of benefits to an overwhelming degree.

 

Those are some reasons why I think reparations would have to take a different form of benefits.  Renegade's idea of collectivizing the benefits to improve schools and utilities in black neighborhoods sounds like a good idea on the surface, but it would significantly change the scope of the reparations structure of the tangible 40 acres and a mule promise.  Negotiations for the payment of reparations are already unlikely as is, they would fall apart if the scope were to change too much in the process.

[twa]

10 hours ago, DCSaints_fan said:

 

 

You could have the bar as being able to trace any black ancestor prior to about 1880 or so.  Because (correct me if I"m wrong here) free blacks did not immigrate to the US, until relatively recently.   And even if I am wrong on that point, its not just slavery we're talking about here, but being subject to ongoing discrimination.

 

 

 

 

There have been free blacks in the us for as long as it has existed and before.

The numbers and locations might surprise some people.

 

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/free-blacks-lived-in-the-north-right/

 

there exists the notion all blacks here back in that period were slaves or freed/escaped slaves ,which is wrong

 

[Going Commando]

I was wrong, it wasn't 11 million slaves freed by the war, it was ~3.5 million.  That still seems like an unworkably huge number.

[Spaceman Spiff]

15 hours ago, Springfield said:

Reading this on my cell phone at the gym but I’m against it.  Maybe I could explain my position later, but it’s a no for me dawg.

 

You're on the Tailgate while you're at the gym?  First step is admitting you have a problem. 

[Llevron]

8 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

You're on the Tailgate while you're at the gym?  First step is admitting you have a problem. 

 

Cant skip ES day bro

[Spaceman Spiff]

2 minutes ago, Llevron said:

 

Cant skip ES day bro

 

Do you even lift bro?!?! Not if you're on the Tailgate at the gym.

 

[Springfield]

5 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

You're on the Tailgate while you're at the gym?  First step is admitting you have a problem. 

 

Well, fancy you quoted me Cause now I’m on the ****ter.  Had time to read the article. My thoughts as follows...

 

I am against giving anyone a blank check.  I think that any social program should have an intended purpose.  I suppose I’m not against reparations on the whole, just the idea of giving someone $80,000 (as the article prescribed) and saying, “here ya go!”.

 

Now what I would probably support, is giving $80,000 to a descendant of a slave towards the purchase of a home of their choosing.  That would generally speak to the 40 acres promise.  I’m against simply giving land because I’d be concerned about just creating more ghettoes/housing projects.  Let the people choose where the want to live.

 

Now that is it out of the way there’s some details that are troublesome, mostly about the logistics...

 

One:  Say you have Jim Crow, he has 40 direct living descendants.  You have John Crow, he has 5 direct living descendants.  Do all the descendants get the same amount of money?  Jim and John would have both been given 40 acres and that would have presumably been passed down through the years to their children, etc.  Is it fair to give more to people with more descendants simply because they fathered more children?

 

Two:  What about descendants of slaves, such as Oprah, who simply don’t need the money?  Can we have a sliding scale of what the payouts are.  I’m cool with sending my tax dollars to homie stuck in the trap to help him buy a house.  I’m not cool with sending my tax dollars to Oprah who has more money than god.

 

Three:  This is more of a basic thought.  I imagine that it’s gonna be hard to get complete records.  I’m a white guy and I can’t trace my history back more than 2-3 generations on ancestry.com, are you telling me that the US government has the ability to trace descendants of slaves?  Seems dubious.  Reparations would be ripe for abuse and fraud.

 

 

Overall, I am for a plan that provides a use. As always, I’m still for plans and ideas that try and break down institutional racism.

 

My two cents on the ****ter, time to wipe.

[DCSaints_fan]

5 hours ago, twa said:

 

There have been free blacks in the us for as long as it has existed and before.

The numbers and locations might surprise some people.

 

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/free-blacks-lived-in-the-north-right/

 

there exists the notion all blacks here back in that period were slaves or freed/escaped slaves ,which is wrong

 

 

My claim is not that free blacks existed.   I'm aware they existed for a long time in the US even in South.   It was that if you were black and inside the US prior to 1860 (probably even later), you ultimately had ancestor that was brought over from Africa as a slave. 

 

I think there may have been some that immigrated from the Carribean.  I'm not sure.   But these were very few in number. 

 

The US had a very racist immigration policy up until the 20th century. 

 

Edit: I see the article does mention some free blacks who immigrated from the West Indies to Louisiana, which was then later bought by the US.   But this is a needle in a haystack. 

[ClaytoAli]

On 5/24/2019 at 2:37 PM, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

There is never going to be a good time to work on reparations.  I can't even fathom how difficult it would be to authenticate the genealogies of what could potentially be tens of millions of claimants.  The longer we put off work on reparations, the more remote the ancestry will become, and the harder the task becomes.  At a certain point, it would mean the debt will never be repaid.

 

Will have to account for the overwhelming number of indigenous Africans that migrated here before slavery and were forced into slavery,  legally freed, then re-enslaved, and then emancipated.

 

Also, they may have to include people in Liberia in the reparations.

[twa]

If you use Sherman's promise as justification aren't you then limited to those he directed it to?

 

 

[nonniey]

2 hours ago, twa said:

If you use Sherman's promise as justification aren't you then limited to those he directed it to?

 

 

Oh and BTW when did field commanders no matter how competent make national policy. 

[NoCalMike]

At the least, this discussion should have everyone in agreement that something more should have been done a long time ago, which is a huge reason this issue is going to remain  relevant and perhaps pick up more steam eventually. 

[twa]

 

[killerbee99]

Trash.... First he aint no damn nfl star... 10 seasons... Nfl probowl alternate once

 

Second... Some of the other bull**** books this douchebag has written

 

Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps (2016)

 

Why I Stand: From Freedom to the Killing Fields of Socialism.. 

 

**** this guy and his hot take

 

 

 

[DogofWar1]

 

 

"the United States was founded by racist white men who installed a system whereby white guys would run everything and blacks, women and others would be exploited."

 

 

Uhhhhh, that sounds about right, we just have a tendency to let the racism bit slide for the sake of creating the USA and since the 1700s were graded on a curve.

[Bozo the kKklown]

8 minutes ago, DogofWar1 said:

 

 

"the United States was founded by racist white men who installed a system whereby white guys would run everything and blacks, women and others would be exploited."

 

 

Uhhhhh, that sounds about right, we just have a tendency to let the racism bit slide for the sake of creating the USA and since the 1700s were graded on a curve.

Mans got ratioed for this stupidity, lol.

[Renegade7]

Ya, that doesnt sound very radical at all, slaves built the Capitol where they were later considered 3/5ths of a person for more votes and women weren't even allowed to vote for the Congress that worked in there.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

No one could vote but land owning white men originally and for a long time after .  it’s a amazing bill orielly still has a job. 

[JCB]

It’s not amazing that Bill O’Reilly apparently hasn’t read the Constitution 

[Simmsy]

Dear God, as a black man, I hate this subject. Not because I want reparations, but because white people look at me as I want a hand out. They say slavery and racism happened a long time ago (we had a black president), I can tell you that it is still a live and strong. I don't want money, that is a cheap payoff...it also does nothing for posterity. If you want to "give" me reparations, treat me like an equal. Make sure I can get equal pay, make sure I can get equal housing, a loan for said house, an education and don't attack me for protesting police violence like a non violent protest is the real problem. Sure, money would be nice, but us something we can actually build on to make the future better.

[killerbee99]

Good luck! 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

House Lawmakers Hold Historic Debate On Bill To Form Reparations Commission

 

A bill that would establish a commission to develop proposals to help repair the lasting effects of slavery is moving closer to a vote in the House — nearly three decades after it was first introduced.

 

Fresh debate over the issue of reparations for the descendants of enslaved people comes amid a national reckoning over race and justice.

 

The House Judiciary Committee took up the bill on Wednesday evening, and was expected to vote on the measure for the first time since former Democratic Rep. John Conyers initially introduced it in 1989. This year, the legislation has the support of more than 170 Democratic co-sponsors and key congressional leaders.

 

Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, the lead sponsor of the bill, H.R. 40, has said that bringing it to a vote on the House floor would be "cleansing" for the country, and she challenged Republicans who argued that such a commission was unnecessary.

 

"I ask my friends on the other side of the aisle, do not cancel us tonight. Do not ignore the pain, the history and the reasonableness of this commission," Jackson Lee said on Wednesday.

 

The bill would create a 13-member commission that would study the effects of slavery and racial discrimination, hold hearings and recommend "appropriate remedies" to Congress. That commission would also consider what form a national apology could take for the harm caused by slavery.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Califan007 The Constipated]

The Truth Behind ’40 Acres and a Mule’

 

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/

 

"We’ve all heard the story of the “40 acres and a mule” promise to former slaves. It’s a staple of black history lessons, and it’s the name of Spike Lee’s film company. The promise was the first systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its time, proto-socialist in its implications. In fact, such a policy would be radical in any country today: the federal government’s massive confiscation of private property — some 400,000 acres — formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its methodical redistribution to former black slaves.

 

"[...]Try to imagine how profoundly different the history of race relations in the United States would have been had this policy been implemented and enforced; had the former slaves actually had access to the ownership of land, of property; if they had had a chance to be self-sufficient economically, to build, accrue and pass on wealth. After all, one of the principal promises of America was the possibility of average people being able to own land, and all that such ownership entailed. As we know all too well, this promise was not to be realized for the overwhelming majority of the nation’s former slaves, who numbered about 3.9 million.

 

"With this Order, 400,000 acres of land — “a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast,” as Barton Myers reports — would be redistributed to the newly freed slaves."

 

****************

 

Can you imagine if black Americans had owned the "strip of coastline" stretching from South Carolina into Florida, and the wealth that could have been handed down through the generations of black families?

[mcsluggo]

On 5/25/2019 at 7:36 AM, twa said:

 

There have been free blacks in the us for as long as it has existed and before.

The numbers and locations might surprise some people.

 

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/free-blacks-lived-in-the-north-right/

 

there exists the notion all blacks here back in that period were slaves or freed/escaped slaves ,which is wrong

 

 

 

what happened to TWA?