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for those of you who might not know what i am talking about

Reparations for slavery is a proposal in the U.S. for the federal government to pay reparation, in various forms, to slave descendants for the transatlantic slave trade. There is also a newer movement to secure reparations, particularly from Western, ex-colonial powers, for Africa and African nations. In 2001, at a UN-sponsored World Conference against Racism, African nations demanded a clear apology for the slavery from the former slave-trading countries, but with no success

 

I think the goverment should have to pay reparations to the african american community.

So the jews got reparations from germany, japenese americans who were imprisoned during ww2 got reparations from the u.s. goverment, the inuit got reparations from canada, the polish got reparations from the nazis,aborigines got reparations from the australian goverment so why is it so hard for african americans to get reparations from slavery, jim crow and the contuined institunalized racism of the american goverment.

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the US government paying reparations is absolutely retarded for a few reasons. the main one being, they have no actual wealth. it is just other peoples wealth that they take. out of that money, people who have abolitionist ancestors would be paying for slavery. people whose ancestors werent even here at the time of slavery would be paying for something they werent even a part of.

 

HOWEVER, the only justified way to pay reparations would be to track down people who had ancestors who owned slaves. if these people benefited from the ancestors owning slaves (like say, they inherited land acquired from income from slave labor) then you could make a case. however, forcing the entire american populace to pay reparations for slavery to people who werent slaves and to some who were decendents free men or not even decendents of slaves, if absolutely retarded.

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i dont know what gave you the idea that the australian government paid reperations to aboriginies but youre sorely mistaken, the aboriginal people in my country didnt even have land rights until the 1970's and they werent in legal ownership of any of the land that they traditionally inhabited until 1993.

 

trust me if you want to compare america to a country with a positive record with indigenous people youre barking up the wrong tree with australia, there are hundreds of little third world aboriginal communities around this country that hardly anyoen knows about.

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Paying reparations is a ridiculous idea for some other reasons, too. Most people who argue in favor of paying reparations are operating on a false account of the history of slavery (the one we are taught in public school). Most people don't know that the white men bought African slaves from Arab slave traders (the most ruthless in the world during colonial times) and from African tribal leaders who believe it or not sold their own people for a piece of the devil's pie. Contrary to what we're taught, no white man was stupid enough to attempt to trek deep into Africa to march out with an army of slaves. Those who did died from diseases and exposure from trying to survive in an inhospitable part of the world that they knew nothing about.

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Paying reparations is a ridiculous idea for some other reasons, too. Most people who argue in favor of paying reparations are operating on a false account of the history of slavery (the one we are taught in public school). Most people don't know that the white men bought African slaves from Arab slave traders (the most ruthless in the world during colonial times) and from African tribal leaders who believe it or not sold their own people for a piece of the devil's pie. Contrary to what we're taught, no white man was stupid enough to attempt to trek deep into Africa to march out with an army of slaves. Those who did died from diseases and exposure from trying to survive in an inhospitable part of the world that they knew nothing about.

 

People in Africa were not selling their own people into slavery, they were selling other people from different African societies. Africa is not one country or nation, but many 100's of peoples and languages. Also, slavery in Africa and Arabic north Africa was a totally different sort of deal. A slave was not "owned" for life, oftentimes they could work their way out. Additionally, the children of slaves did not automatically become the property of the slave owner as in America.

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I had to split in the middle of what I was saying earlier (I'm at work). RusselJones- I hear you, I know Africa is made up of 100's of different tribes/culture/languages and that they werent necessarily selling their own people into slavery. It was all a big business (easily one of the most lucrative at the time) and the Arabs knew how to capitalize on it, thus they were like the salesmen to the colonists/Europeans.

The fact that many people ignore in the whole picture is that slavery was not viewed as evil in the least bit; it was a totally accepted, unquestioned institution that had always been there. I recall being given the impression as a youngster that these bad white men were raping and enslaving at will while the whole rest of the world watched in innocent horror. Thats totally untrue. Did you know that more people were enslaved in India and the Middle East than the entire western hemisphere during slavery's heyday here in America?? That included white men. Did everyone forget where the word "slave" comes from?? From the Slavic peoples (European white people, my ancestors) who were enslaved en masse.

America was the first country to lead a massive crusade (and fight a terrible civil war over) AGAINST slavery. And the idealists who began to turn against the institution of slavery on moral grounds were in fact religious, wealthy people in England and the U.S. who had the luxury of being able to sit back and think about things that most took without question. These people would be known as the "Religious Right" today.

Chances are most people will never hear this side of the story because it doesnt fit the liberal agenda of making white men out to be the most vile creatures in the history of man. Oh yea also because it makes America seem great again. By the way, I didnt pull this stuff out of my ass, Ive read extensively on the topic. Check out "Black Rednecks, White Liberals" by Thomas Sowell, its one of my favorite books that deals with REAL history of race relations. peace

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just to play devils advocate.....

 

 

 

compare the poorest living conditions in america to the poorest living conditions is africa.

How many modern african-americans would rather be be back in africa, in the land of aids,

famine, warlords and civil war? That's a very hard question to answer, and I'm just putting it out there.

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I had to split in the middle of what I was saying earlier (I'm at work). RusselJones- I hear you, I know Africa is made up of 100's of different tribes/culture/languages and that they werent necessarily selling their own people into slavery. It was all a big business (easily one of the most lucrative at the time) and the Arabs knew how to capitalize on it, thus they were like the salesmen to the colonists/Europeans.

The fact that many people ignore in the whole picture is that slavery was not viewed as evil in the least bit; it was a totally accepted, unquestioned institution that had always been there. I recall being given the impression as a youngster that these bad white men were raping and enslaving at will while the whole rest of the world watched in innocent horror. Thats totally untrue. Did you know that more people were enslaved in India and the Middle East than the entire western hemisphere during slavery's heyday here in America?? That included white men. Did everyone forget where the word "slave" comes from?? From the Slavic peoples (European white people, my ancestors) who were enslaved en masse.

America was the first country to lead a massive crusade (and fight a terrible civil war over) AGAINST slavery. And the idealists who began to turn against the institution of slavery on moral grounds were in fact religious, wealthy people in England and the U.S. who had the luxury of being able to sit back and think about things that most took without question. These people would be known as the "Religious Right" today.

Chances are most people will never hear this side of the story because it doesnt fit the liberal agenda of making white men out to be the most vile creatures in the history of man. Oh yea also because it makes America seem great again. By the way, I didnt pull this stuff out of my ass, Ive read extensively on the topic. Check out "Black Rednecks, White Liberals" by Thomas Sowell, its one of my favorite books that deals with REAL history of race relations. peace

 

that sowell book is decent.

its not his best though.

 

america was the first and only country to fight a civil war supposedly to free the slaves. slavery in every other part of the world was abolished peacefully, without killing 600K people.

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Yum sorry i didn't read far enough when it comes to australia, you're right. I was talking about the tracts of land given to them and the apology from the goverment.

 

 

 

the US government paying reparations is absolutely retarded for a few reasons. the main one being, they have no actual wealth. it is just other peoples wealth that they take. out of that money, people who have abolitionist ancestors would be paying for slavery. people whose ancestors werent even here at the time of slavery would be paying for something they werent even a part of.

 

HOWEVER, the only justified way to pay reparations would be to track down people who had ancestors who owned slaves. if these people benefited from the ancestors owning slaves (like say, they inherited land acquired from income from slave labor) then you could make a case. however, forcing the entire american populace to pay reparations for slavery to people who werent slaves and to some who were decendents free men or not even decendents of slaves, if absolutely retarded.

 

ok the country of america benifited from slavery, not just a few people in the south or the goverment but every single person who wasn't a slave in this country and all over the world benifited from american slavery. What do you think that people who were abolitionists didn't use cotton all of a sudden? What did they not smoke tobacco? Did they not benifit from the tax money the goverment made from the sale of slaves and goods made by slaves?

I am not saying everyone should get a check for a couple thousand or some shit like that; social programs would better benifit the people who are ancestors of slaves, people who experienced jim crow, and the continuing racism of the american goverment.

In the 1950's the american goverment subsidized home loans for white america, but made sure that those loans weren't available to any non-whites. This is just one example of things the goverment has done to increase the prosperiety for white america while making black americas social and economic problems worse.

Lincoln wanted the freed slaves to leave america for haiti and liberia. he even invited a group of freed slaves to the white house and said "your race suffers greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason why we should be seperated."

I fail to see how the american goverment paying reparations is retarded.

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just to play devils advocate.....

 

 

 

compare the poorest living conditions in america to the poorest living conditions is africa.

How many modern african-americans would rather be be back in africa, in the land of aids,

famine, warlords and civil war? That's a very hard question to answer, and I'm just putting it out there.

 

well africas calls for reparations have gone unanswered since 1993 when the OAU gathered and called for them. quite a bit of the conditions in africa were caused by european colonialisn.

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spectr that is awesome you know of lincolns racist nature.

however, your gross over exaggeration about the nature of slavery and racism and that there is a need to compensate for it is, in my opinion way off. if a person did not own another person, there is no reason what so ever to force them to pay off a person who had an ancestor who was a slave.

 

the government has no money of its own. they create no wealth. what they do is take money from people at gun point. the money they have is not legitimately earned, it is stolen. the money they have is confiscated property from its citizens.

so, in short what you are suggesting is to have people who didnt own slaves, pay money to people who were not slaves themselves, and some of which are not decended from people who were once in chattel slavery, all in the name of trying to take the moral high road.

 

as i said, the only reparation case that could make any legitimate moral and property rights based case is to actually have someone who is an ancestor of a slave owner, pay a descendent of a slave.

even in this case, i still think it is rediculous to force someone who didnt own another person to pay someone who MIGHT be a descendent of a slave. after all slavery was legal for thousands of years... not that this makes it right.

but then the question is how much? and how is this determined? will any amount of money be enough? will people be satisfied? will it solve anything?

i think not.

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spectr that is awesome you know of lincolns racist nature.

however, your gross over exaggeration about the nature of slavery and racism and that there is a need to compensate for it is, in my opinion way off. if a person did not own another person, there is no reason what so ever to force them to pay off a person who had an ancestor who was a slave.

 

the government has no money of its own. they create no wealth. what they do is take money from people at gun point. the money they have is not legitimately earned, it is stolen. the money they have is confiscated property from its citizens.

so, in short what you are suggesting is to have people who didnt own slaves, pay money to people who were not slaves themselves, and some of which are not decended from people who were once in chattel slavery, all in the name of trying to take the moral high road.

 

gross over exaggeration about the nature of slavery and racism..

 

you are really going to have to elaborate on this one.

 

"the government has no money of its own. they create no wealth. what they do is take money from people at gun point. the money they have is not legitimately earned, it is stolen. the money they have is confiscated property from its citizens.

so, in short what you are suggesting is to have people who didnt own slaves, pay money to people who were not slaves themselves, and some of which are not decended from people who were once in chattel slavery, all in the name of trying to take the moral high road."

 

The goverment does generate revenue by providing a public service and uses that revenue for public services. While i might not agree with taxes i do not see it as money taken from people at gun point. Most of goverment money comes from taxes from corporations and many of these very same corporations have benifited greatly from slavery as has the goverment in the form of taxes on cotton and tobacco.

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taxation, simply put is theft. if people were voluntarily throwing money at the government, or actually paying for these so called 'public' services, then it wouldnt be theft. the government requires people to pay income tax, requires all manners of corporations and business to pay taxes, there are assorted sales taxes, sin taxes, and other assorted excise taxes. what happens if you dont pay taxes? knock knock from the IRS. this is threat of gun point/threat of imprisonment.

 

this is why i say governments do not legitimately obtain wealth. they steal wealth. it is called theft if a person takes your property and you dont voluntarily give it to him. how is it any different than the government?

 

public services are for the most part a big sham. because they dont have to please anyone, be efficient. they have a steady supply of income, coming from coercive collecting of money. if a business were allowed to threaten people to pay them money, this would be an outrage. in a normal market situation, a company has to please its customers. it has to be efficient to keep up with competition. it has to keep costs down to stay in line in the market, this is not so with the government. they can waste, spend and be over paid all they want, because they have to no competition and they have a steady forced supply of 'customers.'

 

 

i'd also like to see a source on how corporations are taxed, back when slavery was legal. most tax revenue during this time was from tariff's on imports. this is actually the main cause of the civil war. land sales were another big form of revenue. i am not aware of any actual direct taxes on corporations, since direct taxation was illegal until the passage of the 16th amendment. if you are saying that the government benefitted from slavery, you are in a sense right, because 80% or so of tariff revenue was generated out of trade that the south did with europe. but not directly from slavery. less than 7% of southerners owned slaves. the south was exporting cotton, and with the tariff as high as the Republicans liked it, the south was paying for the federal government, and got little in return. most of the public services were in the north. the imports that did come in were subject to roughly 35% tariffs, which in turn made manufactured goods in the north, 35% higher. so the north was killing 2 birds with one stone. big business was getting richer, and the government was getting richer. and people think the big business/government spoils system is something that started with industrialization in the early 1900's....

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I should probably mention now that many people in America essentially live as slaves right now. Most of them are immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and most of them are invisible to everyday Americans, but they are there.

 

Spectr, good points about companies who have benifitted from the past of slavery. It is a prickly issue as AOD has pointed out, as far as the question of who pays, but considering the inequalities that still exist in America something needs to be done. And before anyone counters that there is little institutionalized racism holding people back in America look at the neighborhoods you live in and tell me that's the truth. White people are still richer than Latinos and African Americans in this country, and it is almost entirely due to the difference in the worth of real estate that people own. If you live in a Black neighborhood in America, no matter how high end, (outside of hot spots in NYC, San Fran and Atlanta), your house is automatically worth less than the same house on the same land in a White neighborhood. Think about how that effects property taxes, which in turn effects schools, which makes thinks quite difficult indeed for people to be more successful and get richer.

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I should probably mention now that many people in America essentially live as slaves right now. Most of them are immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and most of them are invisible to everyday Americans, but they are there.

 

Spectr, good points about companies who have benifitted from the past of slavery. It is a prickly issue as AOD has pointed out, as far as the question of who pays, but considering the inequalities that still exist in America something needs to be done. And before anyone counters that there is little institutionalized racism holding people back in America look at the neighborhoods you live in and tell me that's the truth. White people are still richer than Latinos and African Americans in this country, and it is almost entirely due to the difference in the worth of real estate that people own. If you live in a Black neighborhood in America, no matter how high end, (outside of hot spots in NYC, San Fran and Atlanta), your house is automatically worth less than the same house on the same land in a White neighborhood. Think about how that effects property taxes, which in turn effects schools, which makes thinks quite difficult indeed for people to be more successful and get richer.

 

do you know about the goverment programs in the 50's which helped white famlies buy houses for little down and next to no intrest, but that excluded non-white famlies. thats a big part of the difference economicaly in this country.

 

AOD as far as taxes goes, while we might disagree about some things; taxes are inevitable and since taxes are levied against everyone and all corporations and some of these people and corporations have benifited directly from slavery, and all most everyone in this country has benifited indirectly from slavery. I don't see that big of a problem with the goverment offering reparations. I fell that reparations should be social programs for the descendants of slaves inside this country. lets look at the goverment program of the 1950's to allow whites to buy houses and land for little down and low intrest rates as a perfect example of a social program that could help overcome the economic differences that have been caused by slavery, jim crow, and institunalized racism of the american goverment.

we can cleary look at the economic differences that have been caused the problems they have created, and the direction that this situtation is perpetuating itself in.

The goverment clearly has a moral responsibility to take action to correct these problems that it has caused, and until such time as the goverment does that it only serves to cause more problems which spill out into other parts of american society. Which is obviously not in the best intrests of the american people, the institution that we call goverment, or any corporation which is doing business in america.

 

and i am still waiting for a elaboration on this comment.

 

gross over exaggeration about the nature of slavery and racism..

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"nd before anyone counters that there is little institutionalized racism holding people back in America look at the neighborhoods you live in and tell me that's the truth. White people are still richer than Latinos and African Americans in this country, and it is almost entirely due to the difference in the worth of real estate that people own. If you live in a Black neighborhood in America, no matter how high end, (outside of hot spots in NYC, San Fran and Atlanta), your house is automatically worth less than the same house on the same land in a White neighborhood. Think about how that effects property taxes, which in turn effects schools, which makes thinks quite difficult indeed for people to be more successful and get richer."

 

who is holding back people? if anything, non whites have more priviledge before the law than whites. for instance, if a white guy beats up a black guy, its hate crime. if a black guy assaults a white guy, it just an assault. there are government sponsored quotas and affirmative action plans that discriminate against people reguardless of talent. how about everyone trying...."equal rights for all, SPECIAL PRIVILEDGES FOR NONE!" the fact that whites may make more money is not the fault of white people. there is nothing holding anyone back in today's world. there are no laws that say it is illegal to pay a black person more than 2.00 an hour. there is no slavery or segregation to blame now. the really bad part is black families were held together better under jim crow than out of it. that is seriously a bad thing. education, work ethic, morals, all start at home. if black families stuck together, things wouldnt be as bad as they are.

 

why, as a rule, are houses in black areas worth less? usually there is more crime. usually houses arent kept up as nice.

 

what is stopping blacks or latinos from buying houses in so called white neighborhoods, besides thier own merit? they are buying a whole lot of houses in white neighborhoods where im at. equality of result is a revolt against nature. not everyone has the same intellegence or skills. and it cannot be governmentally mandated.

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"gross over exaggeration about the nature of slavery and racism.."

 

what im trying to relay in this is that you are trying to make all white people pay all black people because their was segregation and slavery.

which is retarded because black people have money taken by force from them and they are essentially 'paying' themselves. its just a horrible plan. there are way to many holes. besides, where in the constitution are they allowed to pay reparations to certain groups of people for injustice?

 

as thomas sowell said.. you cant blame slavery and segregation for everything. you cant blame just S when X, Y, Z also cause the same result.

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"who is holding back people? if anything, non whites have more priviledge before the law than whites."

 

did you get this direct from the kkk website?

 

"for instance, if a white guy beats up a black guy, its hate crime. if a black guy assaults a white guy, it just an assault."

 

If a black guy beats up a white guy while calling him racial slurs or using race as a motive for the crime it is a hate crime, just like if a white guy beats up a non-white using racial slurs or race as a motive then its a hate crime. Just beating someone not of your race up is not a hate crime.

 

"there are government sponsored quotas and affirmative action plans that discriminate against people reguardless of talent. how about everyone trying...."equal rights for all, SPECIAL PRIVILEDGES FOR NONE!" "

Affirmative action does not mean giving preference to any group. Affirmative action advances a multi-dimensional nature of excellence. It encourages us to recognize pluralism and diversity as a dimension of our value system. Accordingly, a search committee must create a diverse pool of candidates with a significant representation of women and minorities. A candidate's ability to provide cultural diversity to a department, to serve as a role model for students, and to offer a range of perspectives and scholarly interests should be major elements in the evaluation and selection process.

 

Myth: Affirmative action means establishing a quota system for women and minorities.

 

Truth: There is a fundamental difference between goals and quotas. The goal of affirmative action is the inclusion in the job force of individuals previously excluded or under-represented.

stolen from the web...

"the fact that whites may make more money is not the fault of white people. there is nothing holding anyone back in today's world. there are no laws that say it is illegal to pay a black person more than 2.00 an hour. there is no slavery or segregation to blame now."

 

wait its not white peoples fault that they took advantage of black people, that white people in the goverment acted in ways to keep non-whites in this country oppressed and econimaly challenged, that the goverment made it a point to increase the potential of white people to go to school and get better jobs while decreasing the possibiltie for non-whites.

oops sorry my and lots of other peoples mistakes, guess we don't need this thing called civil rights, or the voting rights act..

 

"the really bad part is black families were held together better under jim crow than out of it. that is seriously a bad thing. education, work ethic, morals, all start at home. if black families stuck together, things wouldnt be as bad as they are."

 

you seriously got to back this one up with something...

 

"why, as a rule, are houses in black areas worth less? usually there is more crime. usually houses arent kept up as nice."

 

there are more reasons than that, and there are reasons that go into that, which have been caused by exactly the reason there should be reparations for slavery.

 

"what is stopping blacks or latinos from buying houses in so called white neighborhoods, besides thier own merit?"

 

ah here we go back to the basic arguement that i am making, that non-whites have been handed the short hand of the stick, well its nice now that non-whites have had what 40 years in which to be free from racial oppression, and jim crow, no wait its a bit less then that isnt it.

you know there is nothing stopping them except that they have been placed in a worse economic postion by the goverment making then unable to purchase these houses as often as whites do.

 

"they are buying a whole lot of houses in white neighborhoods where im at."

 

well that seems nice, but this is not backed up with anything what you just saw a couple black people in your neighborhood buy some houses..

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/wealth1108

heres a nice article..

 

equality of result is a revolt against nature. not everyone has the same intellegence or skills. and it cannot be governmentally mandated.

 

dude whats that supposed to mean?

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"gross over exaggeration about the nature of slavery and racism.."

 

what im trying to relay in this is that you are trying to make all white people pay all black people because their was segregation and slavery.

which is retarded because black people have money taken by force from them and they are essentially 'paying' themselves. its just a horrible plan. there are way to many holes. besides, where in the constitution are they allowed to pay reparations to certain groups of people for injustice?

 

as thomas sowell said.. you cant blame slavery and segregation for everything. you cant blame just S when X, Y, Z also cause the same result.

 

now while i agree that you can't blame slavery for everything you can point out allot of its negative effects economicaly nevermind social effects.

 

and i am saying reparations in the form of social programs offered to african americans to allow them to be equal partners in this country not second class citizens as the majority of them still are now.

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why, as a rule, are houses in black areas worth less? usually there is more crime. usually houses arent kept up as nice.

 

 

I won't even get into the other shit that you posted, but I will confront this ignorant statement.

 

 

NO, houses in black neighborhoods are not less expensive because of crime, or because the houses aren't kept up as nice. The real reason is a mixture of racism and simple supply and demand. Let me break it down.

 

Once a certain percentage of a neighborhood becomes Black, Whites will no longer move there. It doesn't matter how nice the neighborhood is, they just won't do it. This is called "white flight" and is well documented. Real estate brokers know this, so they lower the price, because now they can sell the house to only 16% of the population. Get it? It has nothing to do with the quality of the neighborhood or the house.

 

That said, now as a black person you know that your house is never going to be worth very much, what is the point in investing in your home if the value is going down? You can see the situation is just simple racism and economics.

 

And if you don't think there are nice all black neighborhoods, go to Atlanta.

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do you know about the goverment programs in the 50's which helped white famlies buy houses for little down and next to no intrest, but that excluded non-white famlies. thats a big part of the difference economicaly in this country.

 

Great point Spectr. I forgot about that. Those programs specifically excluded non-whites, and since the biggest source of net worth for most people is their house, Whites automatically have more wealth regardless of how much money they make.

 

 

By the way, the programs lasted well into the 70's and they still excluded non-whites through that time.

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Great point Spectr. I forgot about that. Those programs specifically excluded non-whites, and since the biggest source of net worth for most people is their house, Whites automatically have more wealth regardless of how much money they make.

 

 

By the way, the programs lasted well into the 70's and they still excluded non-whites through that time.

 

I had no idea that they still ran the program into the 1970's i thought it ended in the mid 60's with the bulk of the program being used in the 50's.

 

yo you ever check this book agents of repression.

its about the f.b.i. cointelpro operations its a dope book check it if you haven't..

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after reading this whole debate so far, im still not convinced that people now should be paying reparations for decendents of slaves. i also agree with aod that taxes are essentially taken by force and therefore the government doesnt make money and reparations would basically come out of taxpayers pockets. now, i dont know about anyone else but im not a well-to-do whitey. i believe racism has elements of classism involved. civil rights used to be the issue at one time. i think now the more important focus should be on classism. Katrina magnified this point. as such, some groups of whites (i dont know how many) are affected as well (also not sure of the magnitude). i could see having rich families or corporations that in the past have benefited from slavery and are still in high financial standing coughing something up though.

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after reading this whole debate so far, im still not convinced that people now should be paying reparations for decendents of slaves. i also agree with aod that taxes are essentially taken by force and therefore the government doesnt make money and reparations would basically come out of taxpayers pockets. now, i dont know about anyone else but im not a well-to-do whitey. i believe racism has elements of classism involved. civil rights used to be the issue at one time. i think now the more important focus should be on classism. Katrina magnified this point. as such, some groups of whites (i dont know how many) are affected as well (also not sure of the magnitude). i could see having rich families or corporations that in the past have benefited from slavery and are still in high financial standing coughing something up though.

 

ok well please explain why you're not sure if people now should have to pay reparations.

 

And i agree partially with you and AOD on the taxes thing.

 

as far as the classism and racism going hand in hand we all know thats the truth. allot of the classism we have in this country comes from the racist actions of this goverment. The goverment does not do the job entrusted to it by the citizens of this country; we can all plainly see that in almost any setting in this country or just by watching the news. The goverment still is a racist institution with racist policies and the classist system in this country can not be changed until there is racial equality. I feel that reparations in the form of social programs for african american slave descendants would help equal the playing field out. I am not saying that it social programs should just be for african americans, but I am saying that this country owes the african americans quite a debt and is the primary cause of economic hardship of minoritys in this country.

and fermentor america was one of the last countries in the world to outlaw slavery, the only country in the americas that outlawed it later was brazil.

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ok well please explain why you're not sure if people now should have to pay reparations.

 

 

 

simply, it wouldnt be fair. as an example, i was born in the 70's and grew up lower middle class. do you think i should have to pay for what happened over two hundred years ago regarding people i am not related to nor have any association with other than being from the same country?

 

i do agree that this government/country owes a giant debt to blacks. i really dont know what would be just reparations for what they suffered through (and here we're talking about people that werent slaves but had to live through jim crow, etc. since those are the only people still living today). unless you could somehow seperate the people that have benefited from the actions of slavery from those who havent i dont think its fair for people that had nothing to do with it to pay reparations. unless a majority of citizens could come to some kind of consensus on reparations (which i think is far-fetched), its probably not going to work. its also not fair for people who really havent been affected by slavery to receive payouts. again, there would be some historical lineage research necessary here. thats why i like the idea of corporations (who are still making money today) that made their start on the backs of slaves or families whos fortunes were made from slavery having to pay reparations. as crooked as the government is, theyre still pulling the money they operate with out of our pockets, white, black, brown, yellow, etc. and to have citizens who are discriminated based on class today, pay for what people suffered through in the past isnt appropriate. again, i dont know what would be a better solution to the question of reparations since an "apology" from the government would be less than adequate.

 

if i am not giving an adequate response to your question i apologize. my debate skills are novice at best.

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"Once a certain percentage of a neighborhood becomes Black, Whites will no longer move there"

 

the fact is, blacks make up a small portion of the population and do the majority of crime.

the reverend jesse jackson has been quoted as saying that when he walking the DC streets late at night, and he hears someone following him, and he turns around, he is relieved that it is a white guy.

 

blaming racism for lack of merit, work ethic, etc is a total and utter bullshit. i know a handful of black people from teh generation before me who work thier asses off, and make a good living. i'd rather hang out with these people than most white people. they denounce the gang bangers, drug dealers and lazy bums who mooch off welfare.

 

most blacks are just as self segrating as whites. why should the government force people to be together? its the same as forcing them to be apart. the county im from, blacks are very self segregating. i know some of hte blacks there. they are not racist, but they want the neighborhood all black.

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