Physical Revue says "Whiteboards are Racist"

[Phi for All]

11 minutes ago, zapatos said:

So if someone can provide "evidence of a specific act that caused provable harm" then cash may be the way to go. After all, if you can show you are out $100 dollars, then you should get $100 in compensation. But if all you can prove is that 'my grandmother had to go to a crappy school because of segregation', how can you prove specific damages? Perhaps in these cases we should be looking at the bigger picture, where we work to get the group of people damaged by segregation on par educationally with those who were not harmed by segregation.

What if it's "My grandmother had to go to a crappy school, live in a sub-par home in a polluted neighborhood, and was denied loans based on where she lived because of discriminatory government sanctioned redlining practices"? That gives us a basis to start calculating average earnings that were lost. We already know the differences between what white families in the same cities earned on average as opposed to those who were victims of redlining.

[zapatos]

1 minute ago, Phi for All said:

What if it's "My grandmother had to go to a crappy school, live in a sub-par home in a polluted neighborhood, and was denied loans based on where she lived because of discriminatory government sanctioned redlining practices"? That gives us a basis to start calculating average earnings that were lost. We already know the differences between what white families in the same cities earned on average as opposed to those who were victims of redlining.

As I said, the more 'provable harm' the better your case for specific financial compensation. Proof that someone stole $100 from you is a better case than "I probably would be richer if my grandma went to a better school", which is a better case than "I'm black so I've been harmed financially".

[MigL]

I like the proposed approach, but I have to ask

3 hours ago, zapatos said:

I kind of envision a process where we look at the type of specific government policies/laws that led to harm, then try to assign some sort of reparation for that harm.

who is 'we' ?

We already have a system designed to compensate victims of injustices.
The courts do this through individual cases, and class action lawsuits.
Is a separate Government institution going to be set up for this purpose ?

I also have to wonder about systemic racism inherent in all our institutions.
As CharonY mentioned, institutions like the courts and Governments tend to weigh the 'good of the many' higher than the 'good of the few', and minorities are by definition, under-represented. And the ultimate arbitrer, the Supreme Court, is beholden to the political party that appointed a majority of its members.

Would this approach, along with some measures to alleviate systemic racism, measures  that have been previously mentioned by me, and String Junky ( I can find them and paste them if you don't recall them ), not yield better results ?

That is what we have been suggesting, not delaying restitutions until racism has ended ( as some of you have twisted it ).

[mistermack]

My own feelings about reparations are that cash to individuals should not happen, unless that individual was individually harmed. 

What I would approve of is reparations to a disadvantaged group, in the form of educational facilities, health facilities, sport facilities etc. To be honest, I think that should be happening anyway. I'm not a proponent of equality, but I would vote every time for equality of opportunity. That's not going to happen, but if there are to be any reparations, I think they should go in that direction.

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

We already have a system designed to compensate victims of injustices.
The courts do this through individual cases, and class action lawsuits.
Is a separate Government institution going to be set up for this purpose ?

Courts are not set up to remedy generational injustice.  They can at best handle some of the fallout, like predatory rental practice and eviction, and there's work being done to expedite that.  Legislative bodies exist to handle large-scale problems that courts cannot.  With laws.  Given the gridlocked and circus-like atmosphere of the federal legislative branch in US, some of these reparations could conceivably be implemented at the state level, one weird and histrionic skirmish at a time.  

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

who is 'we' ?

We already have a system designed to compensate victims of injustices.
The courts do this through individual cases, and class action lawsuits.
Is a separate Government institution going to be set up for this purpose ?

'We' is a group put together by the government consisting of the right mix of people who are able to handle such a task.

This is a separate institution set up by the government. The government is responsible for the mess, and assuming they take responsibility, they will be the party to address it.

Reparations as I am discussing them are to address laws and policies set up by the government that caused harm to people based on race. It can include apologies, changes in laws and policies, payments, funding, etc.

This is not to address violations of civil or criminal law. If a bank redlined neighborhoods when that practice was illegal, then the courts are already in place to address those types of activities. Since the government cannot be sued for laws that discriminated against minorities, we need a voluntary government approach to fixing the problem. For example, when the government made it legal, and provided funding, to wipe out housing for minorities through the interstate highway system, then the government must develop the solution. The courts have no jurisdiction.

[MigL]

OK, let's consider some other issues, since we seem to be agreeing on too many things now.

A white male Meth addict can trace his roots back to impoverished great-great grandparents in Alabama, who had no source of income because land owners used black slaves  as cheap/free labor.
His ancestors never received an education, and he will never amount to much because of those circumstances; he is not owed any 'racial' restitution.

Oprah Whinfrey ( for example ) can trace her roots back to black slaves in the Southern US of the 1800s, and she can prove that instead of $8 Billion, she would now be worth $25 Billion; she is owed 'racial' restitution.

Does anyone else see the problem with basing restitution on 'race', and not on the injustice suffered ?

[Phi for All]

40 minutes ago, MigL said:

Does anyone else see the problem with basing restitution on 'race', and not on the injustice suffered ?

Only in the way you keep dancing around with the goalposts. I truly thank you for letting us take your topic off on all kinds of tangents, but I think if I really want to talk to you about, say, reparations for victims of government redlining practices, it's going to have to be in a thread specifically about that. Otherwise, you're going to keep ignoring that the injustices we're talking about are based on race, and insisting that it's impossible for any solution to also be based that way.

[zapatos]

10 minutes ago, MigL said:

Does anyone else see the problem with basing restitution on 'race', and not on the injustice suffered ?

Well, given that the target of the injustice was based on race, it doesn't seem unreasonable to make the target of the restitution to be based on race.

I have no problem with you addressing every wrong that has been committed since the beginning of time. I wish you good luck.

But just as I don't see the need for the Breast Cancer Society to address pancreatic cancer, or the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples to address workplace injuries suffered by those carpenters who built the Indian Residential Schools, I also don't see the need for those addressing unjust race laws in the United States to cover every ancillary harm suffered. 

When Germany paid reparations to Israel they did not simultaneously address the German citizens who were harmed by breathing in the ashes of dead Jews. Personally I'm glad they kept their focus.

It will take long enough to simply address those who were the targets of race laws. I'd rather we not delay their compensation any longer than we already have. If you wish to start a commission to address wrongs perpetrated by the government on other groups that have been singled out I think that would be great. We could even start another thread to focus on that exclusively.

And seriously, I do wish you good luck in helping more people who were harmed. I just don't think your idea to expand the pool of recipients for reparations due to slavery, by adding white people who weren't slaves, will gain much traction. Thus my willingness to ignore that group during this particular effort.

[Phi for All]

4 minutes ago, zapatos said:

It will take long enough to simply address those who were the targets of race laws. I'd rather we not delay their compensation any longer than we already have.

This is especially important since many black families have had to flee the cities where this kind of oppression was at its worst, which then allows the wealthy to buy up the distressed properties and gentrify the areas, completing the cycle of discrimination. Cash right now would allow many to update their homes and neighborhoods so they can stay where they are, and take advantage of the improved home value.

[mistermack]

Do you have to run the calculation of what black people would now be earning, back in Africa, if their ancestors had never been enslaved in America? Because there was plenty of slaving going on in Africa before the American market opened up, so the chances are that their ancestors would have died as slaves in Africa, instead of slaves in the Americas. 

It's a complicated calculation. What do you include, what do you leave out, and who decides? To me it's a ludicrous concept. 

People have been oppressed and enslaved, black and white for thousands of years. Very few people weren't enslave or oppressed. Only the very rich. They might not have called it slavery, but it was, in all but name. 

Take 50% of the adult population, for example. Women. Slaves, property, sex-slaves, they were all of that, quite legally, right up the social ladder till relatively recently. Then children. Sent up chimneys, down mines, sold as apprentices, even kidnapped and made to work as pickpockets and burglars, according to one documentary I saw, about a kid called Oliver.

The distinction between "free" people and slaves might be fairly marked now, but it was just a faint blurry smudge for most of history. 

[zapatos]

4 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Do you have to run the calculation of what black people would now be earning, back in Africa, if their ancestors had never been enslaved in America?

Not under my model, no. 

My model is very simple. We did something wrong. Make it right.

I'm not here to solve all the world's problems, or analyze all of its injustices. If I get into a car accident and it is my fault, I pay to make it right. I don't look at the history of what might have been, or if they should have been driving a cheaper car, or if they should have done better maintenance. If I did  damage to their car, then I want to fix it.

9 minutes ago, mistermack said:

It's a complicated calculation. What do you include, what do you leave out, and who decides?

 

It's complicated if you choose to make it so. We aren't following rules set down by others; we get to make up our own rules. If we are paying reparations, then we get to decide who to include and who to leave out, what to pay for and what not to pay for, how much to pay, how to apologize, what to fix going forward. If your plan is too complicated to implement, then simplify it. If it costs too much, pay less. 

But what I don't recommend is that we ignore the harm we've done to our neighbors by using the excuse that someone else did something bad previously. Whataboutism in any form is in my mind just a way to avoid responsibility.

[mistermack]

57 minutes ago, zapatos said:

My model is very simple. We did something wrong. Make it right.

An eye for an eye? That's simple. Find the people who did something wrong, and I agree, force them to make it right. 

Good luck with that. They're dead and gone. My ancestors were probably enslaved by vikings. Not much chance of the Danes or Swedes chucking me a wad of money. I'd be embarrassed to ask for it, but not too proud to take it.

[zapatos]

6 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Good luck with that. They're dead and gone.

The government did it. The government is still there.

If Ford makes a faulty car that has exploding gas tanks, Ford is not off the hook for damages done if their CEO dies. "Ford" is at fault, not the employees personally.

[Phi for All]

10 minutes ago, mistermack said:

An eye for an eye? That's simple. Find the people who did something wrong, and I agree, force them to make it right. 

Good luck with that. They're dead and gone. My ancestors were probably enslaved by vikings. Not much chance of the Danes or Swedes chucking me a wad of money. I'd be embarrassed to ask for it, but not too proud to take it.

Except in the cases highlighted most recently in this thread, the people who did something wrong were The People, as in We, The People of the United States of America. We're not dead, we're not gone, and there are more of us than ever.

Btw, that's not what "An eye for an eye" means. If you run into someone's car and agree to pay for it, it's reparation or compensation. An eye for an eye would be more like, "You ran into my car, so I'm going to run into yours!"

[mistermack]

Just now, zapatos said:

The government did it. The government is still there.

If Ford makes a faulty car that has exploding gas tanks, Ford is not off the hook for damages done if their CEO dies. "Ford" is at fault, not the employees personally.

No, the government are also dead and gone. And Ford is just a name, the organisation is in constant flux. If I buy Ford shares today, I'm not to blame for their previous gas tanks. Basically, your "simple" rule is anything but. 

[zapatos]

1 minute ago, mistermack said:

No, the government are also dead and gone. And Ford is just a name, the organisation is in constant flux. If I buy Ford shares today, I'm not to blame for their previous gas tanks. Basically, your "simple" rule is anything but. 

You most certainly are. If I sue Ford today and win, YOU are going to lose wealth as Ford will have to pay me and it will mean you get reduced dividends or reduced share value.

[Phi for All]

3 minutes ago, mistermack said:

No, the government are also dead and gone.

Demonstrably false. The representatives that drafted the laws that caused the problems are dead, but those laws were still operating even after they died, and some of the people affected by those laws are still alive. The US doesn't throw out laws (or our responsibility to follow them) just because those who drafted them have died. 

[mistermack]

Just now, zapatos said:

You most certainly are. If I sue Ford today and win, YOU are going to lose wealth as Ford will have to pay me and it will mean you get reduced dividends or reduced share value.

You're jumping around in your logic. I might be legally liable, but I'm not morally "to blame" in any way for the gas tanks. Just like the government is NOT legally liable for reparations, but you're trying to argue that they are "to blame".  It's all very much special pleading. 

Your simple model was, "if we did something wrong, make it right". You're now a million miles from that. 

[zapatos]

3 minutes ago, mistermack said:

You're jumping around in your logic. I might be legally liable, but I'm not morally "to blame" in any way for the gas tanks. Just like the government is NOT legally liable for reparations, but you're trying to argue that they are "to blame".  It's all very much special pleading. 

Your simple model was, "if we did something wrong, make it right". You're now a million miles from that. 

Whatever. I'm tired of trying to follow you around the room.

[mistermack]

5 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

The US doesn't throw out laws (or our responsibility to follow them) just because those who drafted them have died.

So why don't you all clear off back where your ancestors came from, and give the continent back to it's rightful owners?

[iNow]

4 hours ago, mistermack said:

Do you have to run the calculation of what black people would now be earning, back in Africa, if their ancestors had never been enslaved in America? Because there was plenty of slaving going on in Africa before the American market opened up

Please permit me to take this opportunity to remind you that the enslavement of entire civilizations was only ONE single piece of what’s under discussion here in terms of reparation.

For centuries, even after emancipation and even after amending the constitution itself to ensure equal rights and opportunities for all, despite those steps we’ve seen how the enforced rights and systemic experiences of millions upon millions of US born citizens have remained very much unequal. For generations and with appalling consistency and based solely on the melanin content of one’s skin.

And let’s recall that it’s not like we need to engage in some archeological dig or interpret barely visible hieroglyphics to see evidence of these skin color based inequalities. We  need only to drive today across the tracks down any MLK Blvd in any major US city, open our eyes, and look around.

Right now. Today. In the summer of 2023. We still see it everywhere.

2 years since Daunte Wright was killed by uniformed officials of the US government. 3 years since George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. 5 years since Stephon Clark. 7 years since Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. 8 years since Walter Scott. 9 years since Tamil Rice, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner… and that’s only a subset of what we’ve seen this last decade. It’s not comprehensive, and it’s only a tiny sliver of this much larger puzzle under discussion in this thread.

These asymmetries in rights and experiences across the US system are still happening right now today 50 years AFTER the equal rights amendment. 150 years AFTER the 14th amendment and reconstruction began. 160 years AFTER the emancipation proclamation was signed. Not measured in days, weeks, months, or years. Not even measured in decades. It’s measured in CENTURIES these segregated Jim Crow KKK redline underfunded asymmetries.

Can we please agree that mention of what to do in Africa is a bit of a red herring here and remain focused / not intentionally throw wrenches into the gears? Can we please agree that historic slavery is a related, but very much separate topic?

Will you please join me in AT LEAST recognizing that continuously reintroducing that separate thing is NOT helpful toward progressing THIS discussion HERE about MODERN issues? Will you please consider that doing so only further distracts from our attempts to nourish threads of consensus across diverse minds? How you and me already agree that we both can and should be better as a community of citizens, and that one possible path for getting there together involves reparations?

Edited June 27, 2023 by iNow

[MigL]

4 hours ago, zapatos said:

I have no problem with you addressing every wrong that has been committed since the beginning of time. I wish you good luck.

No, that isn't what I'm suggesting at all.

The Government, laws and economy of the Southern US were based on cheap slave labor for the rich plantation owners.
This greatly affected black Americans, but it also afected white Americans.
If you did not own land, you didn't have a job.
The South has had a very difficult time transitioning to a modern industrial and post industrial economy.
To this day, most Southern States are 'right to work' states, lacking collective bargaining and with low minimum wages.
By any metric, people in the South are less educated, less employment opportunities, and a harder life ( although I recognize black American southerners have it much worse ).
The cause for the lack of opportunity in the American South, for both blacks and whites, is directly linked to the former slave economy.
That is what my previous example was trying to illustrate ( not that I have anything against O Whinfrey )

I think I'm on point, yet I'm accused of tap dancing around the goalposts.
If we want to keep the discussion stricly about redlining, then we can simply ignore this; I'm flexible.

And I also appreciate how this discussion has meandered; it has allowed for a lot of good posts, and ideas, to be shared.

[iNow]

2 minutes ago, MigL said:

not that I have anything against O Whinfrey

I’d support means testing if that’s a sticking point 

Some sort of graduated scale 

[MigL]

8 minutes ago, iNow said:

I’d support means testing if that’s a sticking point 

There is no 'sticking poin' for me.
I'm Canadian; our Prime Minister apologises to anybody who'll listen.

This is a ( mostly ) American problem to be sorted out.
I'm just offering my opinion, just in case anyone should want it.