So you saying Black Americans were not directly effected by slavery?? Since the government never saw fit to "do right" by former slaves, wouldn't it make sense that their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren inherit those benefits??? In the case of the reparations for the Japanese, their family members also had inheritance rights. I respect your entitlement to your view, but I don't think its correct. I think its very easy for folks, other minority groups to marginalize the effects of slavery in this country.I'm glad you think folks shouldn't be "handed" something they didn't earn, first who is advocating that...but if we are on that subject, its arguable that the countries who benefited from slavery and their residents benefited from labor they didn't pay for....maybe I'm just a little militant in my view point, but I so don't believe in the concept of everyone pulling themselves up by their bootstraps stuff. The United States is a great country, BUT it has a long way to go in race relations.
Quote from: BP on June 25, 2005, 09:28:32 PMQuote from: elegantpearl01 on June 25, 2005, 08:59:34 PMSo you saying Black Americans were not directly effected by slavery?? Since the government never saw fit to "do right" by former slaves, wouldn't it make sense that their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren inherit those benefits??? In the case of the reparations for the Japanese, their family members also had inheritance rights. I respect your entitlement to your view, but I don't think its correct. I think its very easy for folks, other minority groups to marginalize the effects of slavery in this country.I'm glad you think folks shouldn't be "handed" something they didn't earn, first who is advocating that...but if we are on that subject, its arguable that the countries who benefited from slavery and their residents benefited from labor they didn't pay for....maybe I'm just a little militant in my view point, but I so don't believe in the concept of everyone pulling themselves up by their bootstraps stuff. The United States is a great country, BUT it has a long way to go in race relations.Oh your views as outlined here are not even militant per se. They just make sense. Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent; 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, and only 30 involving anything else (Roger Wilkins). All the while being the back bone of this country's economy (imagine an entire workforce that worked for free..no benefits, no pay, no 401Ks', no social security). Now some white folks would have us believe that it's all good...we should be caught up. Oh, and is there another group of people that were "handed something they didn't earn" more than white folks in this country? Let's get real.Um, yeah, actually, not all white people have been handed things because they are white. Not only uninformed, but insulting. An enormous number of this country's European immigrants went through hell for everything they had, which was nothing much, and while not slaves, were to the industrial age what slaves were to southern agriculture. You think living in a New York City tenanment was fun in the sun? You think being literally shot down by the corporations you worked for when you tried to get those benefits you mentioned (that were also held back from whites, FYI) was fun? You think being denied employment and being attacked in the streets for being the wrong religion was any different from being ostracized because of the color of your skin? How about the Jews in this country who were denied basically everything, and the ones in Europe who were allowed to die in the Holocaust while the rest of the world, black, white and purple, basically sat and did nothing? Why don't we REALLY get real and not act like a good number of white people in this country don't know what discrimination or unfairness is. At the same time, let's not forget that there were an awful lot of white people in this country who fought for an end to slavery, and who fought and continue to fight for civil rights when more ignorant segments of the country weren't and aren't interested. AA is not the solution to injustice. It does nothing to truly level the playing field and it allows the systems that permit inequality and lack of opportunity to continue existing. It will take a real commitment to changing those systems to really eliminate racism, bigotry, sexism and classism from the American vocabulary, and nothing else.
Quote from: elegantpearl01 on June 25, 2005, 08:59:34 PMSo you saying Black Americans were not directly effected by slavery?? Since the government never saw fit to "do right" by former slaves, wouldn't it make sense that their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren inherit those benefits??? In the case of the reparations for the Japanese, their family members also had inheritance rights. I respect your entitlement to your view, but I don't think its correct. I think its very easy for folks, other minority groups to marginalize the effects of slavery in this country.I'm glad you think folks shouldn't be "handed" something they didn't earn, first who is advocating that...but if we are on that subject, its arguable that the countries who benefited from slavery and their residents benefited from labor they didn't pay for....maybe I'm just a little militant in my view point, but I so don't believe in the concept of everyone pulling themselves up by their bootstraps stuff. The United States is a great country, BUT it has a long way to go in race relations.Oh your views as outlined here are not even militant per se. They just make sense. Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent; 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, and only 30 involving anything else (Roger Wilkins). All the while being the back bone of this country's economy (imagine an entire workforce that worked for free..no benefits, no pay, no 401Ks', no social security). Now some white folks would have us believe that it's all good...we should be caught up. Oh, and is there another group of people that were "handed something they didn't earn" more than white folks in this country? Let's get real.
Quote from: mobell195 on June 25, 2005, 11:35:13 PMSo the compensation for slavery and Jim Crow is simply putting things the way they should have been in the first place? None of the consequences have to be undone?Ok Fuego, since AA is bad and reparations are bad, but you acknowledge that racism and classism are big problems, what would be good solutions? What do you suggest?Slavery in America is not the cause of racism. It's not the cause of classism. Racism existed between Irish and Italian immigrants to this country in the same way it existed between blacks and whites. Catholics and Protestsants continue to murder each other in Northern Ireland. The British repressed the Irish for generations. Differences of religion have led to the worst conflicts in the history of the world, including our own current terrorism concerns. Women were treated as second class citizens throughout the world, until relatively late in this century, and still are, in some parts of the world. A madman was able to convince the people of his country that Jews were responsible for all the problems of Europe. Racism and classism, sexism and religious intolerance are not problems native to this country, and we can't deal with them by using our own experience with slavery as a springboard. I was not trying to say that tolerance and equality and civil rights are reperations for slavery in the sense that all of those things have been accomplished, and that we should all be content with the way things stand. I was saying that handing out some cash donation to every black family as some kind of compensation is not going to solve the problem. Is that really the proper response to something like slavery, go take this money and buy a big screen TV? It's not investing in our urban centers, it's not providing equal education and thus equal opportunity for everyone? The ultimate solution for dealing with our past and moving towards a united future is to throw money and energy at history and not at our present? A great many brave individuals of all colors have stood up to fight for civil rights in this country, and considering we still haven't reached the point we should, I would never assume to know the solution to the problem. I know, however, that we aren't going to solve the problems of intolerance and bigotry, sexism and religious persecution by throwing money at the descendants of those who endured the harsher times in our history, and we aren't going to accomplish anything by handing out freebies without dealing with the problems that lead us to contemplate them.
So the compensation for slavery and Jim Crow is simply putting things the way they should have been in the first place? None of the consequences have to be undone?Ok Fuego, since AA is bad and reparations are bad, but you acknowledge that racism and classism are big problems, what would be good solutions? What do you suggest?
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