Reparations?

[((A))P]

Forget reparations. Its never gonna happen.

i only believe this when Black people say it...

[MoeSWG]

Forget reparations. Its never gonna happen.

i only believe this when Black people say it...

dont you think something is owed though by companies and by the government?

[((A))P]

of course, only i am quite clear on the fact that those that owe will never willingly pay up... the only way to take reparations is through struggle. thats why i dont care what white folk say about it..they are never going to give up what they stole and admit that not only this economy but modernity as we know it rests on the enslavement of African people and the continual policing of racial hierarchies. but when Black people say there will never be reparations then i have to believe them because we have to make it happen.

[philibusters]

Whoa, there are strong sentiments in the original post

I don't think AA  is a form of reparations.  AA has its own complex history that dates bate to the Civil Rights movement, not the Civil War-I think we should interpret it in part based on the the goals that the participants who shaped it had in the 1960's or 1970's when it was formed, and I don't think they intended it to be a form of reparations.  Thats not to say it couldn't function like a form of reparations, which would make it a reparation, but I don't think it does, it only benefits a small percentage, its goals seem more limited, and its recipients don't view it as a form of compensation for past injustices, at least I don't think.

I am not sure I would say modernity is built on the enslavement of African people and the continual policing of racial hierarchies.  I think its safer to say the United States as we know it was shaped tremendously by African enslavement in so many ways, it greatly affecting the building of the economy empire, it influenced the framers and writers of the constitution, both in how they explicitly dealt with slavery in the Constitution, and how they viewed liberty in the abstract, it probably played a powerful role in how class and gender distinctions matured in the America, not only the relationship between African Americans and Whites, but also by the very dimension of slavery, redrew all racial, gender, and class boundaries and I think affected their maturation, after the Civil War the vestiges of slavery continued to play a powerful economic role, think of the migrations north, the geographic and demographics have affected the political landscape, continues to affect the maturation and development of all class, gender, and racial lines today, has greatly affected popular culture and so on.

I am not sure reparations are the best way to achieve social justice, which seems to be rbg goal based on his critique of AA.  Reparations are analogous to legal damages and compensate victims for past loses--which doesn't necessarily equate with social justice which looks towards the future. Compensation for past loses in this case would be very hard to define and any reparation would be like a superficial band-aid from a point of view because past loss is felt on an individual level-its hard to access its affects through 150 years and its superficial because it assumes all loses are the same, same slaves probably suffered more than others and whats more some of their descedants suffer more than others (some are stuck in poverty, some aren't), thus any political compensation would be a one size fits all type thing and would probably end up being more of a moral victory than a economic or true compensation victory.  Plus, it would give its recipients limited value long term.  Money is not necessarily power, especially in small amounts.  On the other hand, AA is actually more long term oriented, lets get minorities into positions of power so they have a say in controlling the infrastructure--usually thats of limited use, because people of power, upper middle class professionals, whether they be african american, asian, white or whatever tend to support the system, but from a long term perspective at least the institutions that distribute wealth and power and in the hands of a diverse racial and gender groups of people. 

[John Galt]

I love white guilt. Feel free to cut me a check.

[cui bono?]

I love white guilt. Feel free to cut me a check.

    agreed. lol

[mugatu]

AA is ineffective, but not because it's a poor form of reparations.  AA is ineffeective because it is a band-aid solution instead of solving the problem in general.

[((A))P]

AA is ineffective, but not because it's a poor form of reparations.  AA is ineffeective because it is a band-aid solution instead of solving the problem in general.

i feel the band-aid point, but i dont know if you read my other posts on this thread. what i'm trying to get as is AA as something worse than a band-aid because it was never intended to be any kind of solution. rather it was intended to ccorrupt the Black liberation struggle by absorbing the threat of revolt and resistance outside of capitalism, and by injecting the values of the dominant society. this was reactionary in the face of a communitarian, radical Black nationalist, liberation struggle. if you look at its history AA was created and put into effect by whites, this on its face makes me suspicious of its motives. anyway i think some of what i meant got taken the wrong way although i have been trying to clarify... check out all my posts.

[mugatu]

I got it...i just never assumed that AA was any type of reparation.  (Maybe it was trumpeted as such.  If so, I am incorrect.)

On the other hand, seeing AA as disingenuous is most likely off the mark as well, and starts to illustrate a form of conspiracy that I would be hard pressed to accept.  If, however, it could be shown that everyone agreed to start AA and then use AA as an excuse to limit progress in other arenas (lower education), thus limiting the ability of people to take advantage of AA, or succeed after they have taken advantage of AA, then I'll join you in conspiracy.  It is more likely that it is simply a poor program that doesn't really fix the basics of education.

We should have AA: Kindergarten.

[philibusters]

AA is ineffective, but not because it's a poor form of reparations.  AA is ineffeective because it is a band-aid solution instead of solving the problem in general.

i feel the band-aid point, but i dont know if you read my other posts on this thread. what i'm trying to get as is AA as something worse than a band-aid because it was never intended to be any kind of solution. rather it was intended to ccorrupt the Black liberation struggle by absorbing the threat of revolt and resistance outside of capitalism, and by injecting the values of the dominant society. this was reactionary in the face of a communitarian, radical Black nationalist, liberation struggle. if you look at its history AA was created and put into effect by whites, this on its face makes me suspicious of its motives. anyway i think some of what i meant got taken the wrong way although i have been trying to clarify... check out all my posts.

Hmm, from that I see how key langauge is.  For example if I said AA was an attempt the Black liberation movement into the mainstream, to intergrate their point of views with more mainstream points of view-that doesn't sound nearly as bad, yet in essence its the same thing just a different spin on it.

Lets face it, the Black Liberation movement represents about 12% of the population theortically, so you will never have a situation like like in South Africa say where the ANC eventually took control of the country.  The Black Liberation movement politically focus is quite narrow and will really only interest a small % of the population, that being the cae what are their alternatives

Alternative 1:  What you seem to adovocate is for the movement to stay ideological pure  This means staying a way from the give and take of politics-say AA.  The good side is the ideology stays pure, the bad side it is seems impractical why have a political reform movement if you really aren't hoping for any changes.  The strength of this position is that it becomes more like an intellectual movement, that gives awareness and strength to its followers and that they form their own practical political reform movement, but even if that is so-eventually you have to compromise

Alternative 2:  Compromise-things like AA are a compromise believe it or not, if it wasn't why would all the white people on here scream bloody murder.  Here ideally and in the abstract, you are giving people from the black liberation positions in the government and other things like universities admissions, that will help them get government positions later, this way they have a voice in governement.  This is somewhat analogous to "no taxation with representation" of the revolutionary war period-or DC trying to get a vote in the house today--note I said somewhat analogous, I know there are differences.  The strength of this is that it incorporates dissidents into the system and avoids strife, if the ideas of people newly incorporated into the government are good, ideally given their position, they will get the ideas into the marketplace of ideas at key points and will even be able to implement some of these ideas themselves.  The negative is that both sides most compromise.

There are of course a lot of other alternatives, some different from the two I listed, some similiar, but not quite the same.

I think the problem with RBG position is that he only looks at AA from the Black Liberation Movements perspective.  Whereas in fact AA was the result of a complex history of interaction between the Civil Right's Movement and the establishment and forced compromise on both sides.  There are conservatives who feel strongly that AA is a wretched idea because it gives legitimacy non-legit ideas, that it panders to a special interest, that it ruins the merit system, and that by incorporating other ideas (like the importance of diversity detracting from "traditional values" like merit and work ethic) it somehow detracts from traditional American values.  Note the last issue of the conservatives is similar to the one put out by the the other side, that by incorporating mainstream values into the movement they have detracted from the movements traditional values.

To me politics is not a tool to achieve ends, but its a fact of human existence.  Just like we need to feed ourselves and clothe ourselves, in the end, we have to work through politics to achieve economic, social, and political goals.  The only alternative that I can think of is war.  And politics just assumes give and take, as much as that bothers idealists on both the conservative and liberal side, I think politics does always require give and take.  This seems especially unfair when one side seems to have the cards stacked in its favor, but like I said, politics is only about give and take.