Do you think paying reparations works?

There have been many atrocities in the history of most countries. Some countries try to find ways to make it up to the descendants of those the atrocities were committed against. In the US, reparations tends to be things like affirmative action for college admissions and job promotions and special legal exemptions such as for Indian (Why aren't they called Native American?) casinos. (Forrest Black actually did just find out from his grandmother than he is part Native American, so watch for the Blue Blood Casino.)

As those the crimes were committed against are usually long-dust by the time someone says, "hey maybe we should not have done that, it being immoral and all," do reparations serve any function? Or do they just assuage the guilt of the descendants of wrong-doers and keep bigotry and prejudice alive?

The fact that they concern a completely different group of people that happens to fall into a 'category' (usually of types we shouldn't be taking into consideration in the first place) with the people that have been wronged renders the symbolism of it meaningless, at the very least. All these formal apologies demanded by victim's descendants from current governments for wrongdoings by their predecessors are quite absurd.

Certainly, in an ideal society (or even in one adhering to merely the capitalist ideal) where everyone has the same chances from birth, reparations would be entirely redundant. Unfortunately, we are burdened by legal systems where many of the most valuable commodities for living or any other effort, such as land, are divided among us not by any ideal of equal opportunity but by the inheritance of ancient forceful first-come, first-serve standards. Now today, when all such resources are already 'owned' by someone, the illusion persists that our more civilised and regulated standards of transferring that ownership are all that remain relevant (or at least all that we can do anything about at this point) - but the fact remains that none of us start life with one-six billionth of the world to live in, and that those that start with less often spend their lives paying those that start with more for the barest living essentials.

So perhaps when it comes to forcefully reacquired resources, such as capturing the US from its native population, reparations have practical merit where they lack it symbolically. Rather than giving just native americans a reasonable place to live in though, I think that acceptance of the fact that such things are necessary in the first place exposes a greater flaw in our social order, and that we ought to think about addressing it for everyone's sake.

Sure...If they really follow through with it. I have alot of black friends that are still waiting for their 40 acres and a mule.

No. Why should we pay someone for something that happened to their family member pass away before their own grandparents was born?

If we live with that mental set then pretty much every single of us are a victim in a way. I'm like 1/16 indian but yet I'd never say I'm a indian and certain don't look remotely like one. So should I get reparation pay for what govt did to my great grandpa's family who pass away before I was even born?
I'm also deaf, they use to treat us like crap and call us dumb and stuff like that. Should I get special treatment for what they did to deaf person before I was even born?

So in my eyes this is just stupid! It is just a way for people to try make a quick money without doing anything for it. So if one group ask then next thing we know is, everybody will be making claim about their past and asking for a hand out from govt. If everybody do that then everything will be a disaster for everyone.

Beside that if we stay stuck to past instead of moving forward, we'll never get anywhere.

At some point enough is enough. It's one thing to try and make amends and let people have their equal rights.

But at some point we have to just move on from what happened in the past. Otherwise it does keep bigotry and prejudice alive.


For what it's worth, I'm saying this as someone with a Native American blood line.

its basically a way of people trying to payout of guilt. and focourse the whiteguy tends to ge tblamed for a lot of things that happened which in allf airness, the whiteguy did do alot of nasty things especially here in america. colonising the country and pretty much nearly wiping outt he inhabitants of the land befor ehtme, bringing slaves over form africa and the carribean, treating asian immigrants like slave labor to build the railroads as well as put them in interment camps during world war 2, encouragin illegal immigration by promising shithole jobs for piss poor wage to the latino community but the problem is not all white people did those things. my ancestory comes mostly from ireland and germany wiht a sprinkle of scot and welsh too and none of us were slave owners or foremans, when the riish came over, they were treated like shit. and germans? pfffft......there are still people ou there who think every german is a nazi. in all fairness the only thign doing reparations is gonna cause is tearing a rift between racial relations. we need to frankly move on past it and think about the now cus no matter how much land or money or credit you give someone, it will neve rbuy back what happened and is only going to encourage people to look at other people in a descriminatory manner.

i don't think people who did no wrong should pay those who weren't wronged

only the people who did wrong should pay those that were wronged

Depends on who the group was, and how exactly they were disenfranchised.

The US paid money for grievances of violating the civil rights of citizens that they unjustly placed in concentration camps in WWII. As far as I know this compensation was only given out to the people directly involved and not to thier descendants. I'd say that was pretty fair.

Indians are paid money on account that there land was stolen from them by fraud and that land is now considerably more valuable in the economic market than the money that they receive from it. It's kind of like the US Government pays them land taxes on the property that is rightfully theirs. You can't really say that that is fair but it would be wholly unjustified to not give them anything at all.

African-Americans worked for 200 years without getting paid and without any opportunities for capital investments, which pretty much doomed them to poverty and ensures that they will never be equal in market status as white people who have accrued and passed on wealth during all that time.

It would fair for the descendants of slave-owners to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves because their wealth was stolen from the people that rightfully earned it, and who should have been able to pass it down in inheritance to their own families, not to the family members of the slave owners. It really doesn't have anything to do with race, but economics.

But this isn't usually done because white people don't like that idea, and they are the ones that still have the power over black people. Instead they put forth ideas that are based on race, like affirmative action, that don't really help economically, and just continue to piss off white people that don't want to suffer for the crimes of their ancestors.

I think it would backfire frankly. How would we determine who gets what from whom? I think more recent immigrants (which frankly include members of both our families) would be perplexed at best. Native Americans actually have a specific constitutional status though. Blueblood Casino sounds good to me!

OEC

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Originally Posted by One Eyed Cat

. Blueblood Casino sounds good to me!
OEC

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Too bad Scar, Kellie Laplegua, Soma Stardust, etc... probably won't be the cocktail waitress. That'd have been so awesome! :D

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Originally Posted by Deadly Envy

Too bad Scar, Kellie Laplegua, Soma Stardust, etc... probably won't be the cocktail waitress. That'd have been so awesome! :D

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yeah and it'd make for one hell of a photoshoot to boot too!

I think the perpetuation of the 'somebody owes me' frame of mind is not healthy for a society in general. I'm sure if I looked up my family tree, a lot of people would potentially owe me something for some misdeed, if I employed this perspective. But, we actually don't live in a cast society and personal advancement is possible with a lot of hard work. Different people have different advantages and disadvantages, but you should take stock of your strengths and weaknesses and take appropriate measures to compensate so you can properly advance yourself.

I know this is a sensitive topic and I hope this doesn't make me seem like a jerk or whatever, but America didn't invent slavery. All white people did not enslave all black people, for example. The oversimplification of these issues profoundly offends me. People with apparently similar appearing ethnicity actually tend to be from wildly disparate localities and it's disrespectful and ignorant to assume things like all Asians are the same, all Blacks are the same, all Whites are the same, etc. Within any of those groups there are rich histories of abuse, mistreatment, genocide, territorial invasion and theft, and enslavement too, not separated by color of skin. I don't wear my ancient heritage on my sleeve like a team logo (thanks for bringing that up btw Amelia) because frankly this is America, and I look at my fellow Americans as just that, fellow Americans. I know that I vote and advocate my conscience and that really is nearly all that I should be judged by as a citizen.

I think the concept of reparations in American oversimplifies things as Forrest said and I find it offensive as well.

If it was going to happen it should have happened at the time. It's been long enough that to actually make it happen in any meaningful way would be a logistical nightmare that I doubt the government could handle.

I think it would serve the country better to teach about the wrongs rather than try to pay for them.

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Originally Posted by ForrestBlack

. . . I don't wear my ancient heritage on my sleeve like a team logo (thanks for bringing that up btw Amelia) because frankly this is America, and I look at my fellow Americans as just that, fellow Americans . . .

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Apologies. Entertaining though the idea of a Blue Blood casino is, that was totally out of line on my part.

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Originally Posted by Amelia G

Apologies. Entertaining though the idea of a Blue Blood casino is, that was totally out of line on my part.

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Oh, it's really no problem at all. I wouldn't take anything my family said all that seriously though. I've heard all sorts of conflicting stories. It isn't the first time I've heard that one, but it's one of many versions.

The thing is, it is never that simple.

Affirmative action is not repayment for some 200 year old crime, it is designed to address current inequities. old systems in place designed to keep old money in place. Fraternities, societies, social clubs that did not even allow non whites until a few decades ago and now, although they allow them, you still get in mostly based on who your father was. Basically there are networks non whites do not get the benefit of or are only starting to.

There may be better ways to address these inequities, but so far not many people are looking.

As far as the Indians go, like OEC said, that is a special case. We made promises, broke them, made new ones, broke them, made different one, then finally said, sure, you can have casinos.

Generally speaking I do not think reperations should go more than a generation or two from the original crime, but you really have to look at the current state of the crime.

that is a good point that forrest brings up. there are many "white" people that emigrated here in the last century from Ireland, Italy, Germany, and Poland mostly, but from all over Europe that are not related to the original English, French and Spanish setllers, who never owned slaves and for the most part weren't exactly treated so hot when they got here either.

I think that state sanctioned apologies for this sort of thing are a 'nice gesture' if you decide to take that as anything important.

Personally I think reparations are really ridiculous. I think at times there is the attitude that prevails that somehow one is owed more for their ancestors troubles than the other. Nobody really is owed a cash settlement for their people having been mistreated, because it opens up a can of worms that can't be shoved back into the can, and creates an aura of entitlement for the sins of the father.

Its stupid, and it fails at making anything better because it only results in opening all kinds of wounds everywhere. Give person A reparations, and person B can step up and come up with some very legit reasons as to why they too, are owed.

As for Native Americans, its time to fish or cut bait. The government just needs to apologize, break up the reservations into private lands for individuals of the tribe, and string free welcome the Native Americans into American Citizenship. There's not a damn thing that can be done for the years of mistreatment. It just has to be cold-cock done something about, unfair or not.

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Originally Posted by Wickedanima

As for Native Americans, its time to fish or cut bait. The government just needs to apologize, break up the reservations into private lands for individuals of the tribe, and string free welcome the Native Americans into American Citizenship. There's not a damn thing that can be done for the years of mistreatment. It just has to be cold-cock done something about, unfair or not.

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Why would they do that? it doesn't really benefit them in any way, because they still have shitty land with no opportunities, but now they don't get to have their own representative government and they have to pay taxes to the US. that sounds like a really raw deal to me.

It's not like they are not US citizens and they aren't allowed to leave the rez. Most of them don't want to because they want to stay on the land of their ancestors and keep their native customs and traditions, plus they all get money from the tribe, which is generally enough incentive to keep them from going out and becoming wage slaves to rent like the rest of us are.

maybe if the reparations were a free college education I would see how they would serve a purpose.
I do not know much about where the reparation funds come from, but if taxes and public funds are the source of these reparations, then I think that is fucked....it's like "Hey, thanks for taking my money, taxing it, and giving less of it back to me while calling it Reparations for something I never experienced."
Again, I dont really know much about this subject.