Current Events > Do you support reparations?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The government and community at large is already doing some of those other things. Investment in black communities & schools that is. But if they call it reparations, the news would fucking shit themselves.

No. I don't want to give white folks the excuse, "Get over slavery/Jim Crow because you got reparations!" Y'all gonna hold that L.

Slaya4 posted...

No. I don't want to give white folks the excuse, "Get over slavery/Jim Crow because you got reparations!" Y'all gonna hold that L.

I mean, they still say "get over slavery/Jim Crow" without any reparations.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

You may want to move to a better state (out of the south) if you want better public schools. I hear Connecticut is ranked highly. And half of my property taxes in Colorado go to schools now.

Yea... In Canada, actual proper houses that aren't in disrepair for indigenous people, plus land or maybe guaranteed government representation at every level

For the US... idk... Maybe homes for black people (not sure how this would work, with veryfying history) who don't have homes. Is it possible to just give out government bonds?

without having read all the posts in this topic.

I am not against reparations. If, for some reason, it was put up to a direct vote and placed on a ballot, I'd actually vote in favor of it.

That said, I'm not an active supporter of it. I'm not going to vote for someone just because they will actively push for legislation in support of reparations. If his/her other policies are good, then sure.

And I won't go out on the streets advocating for it.

Look, our government spends a lot of money on a lot of useless things, and a lot of bloat. Reparations can actually help a certain demographic. That, in itself, is productive.

edit: for clarification, I'd support things like $1000 a month per family. Maybe even $2000 a month. No strings attached. Honestly, the best thing we can give anyone is cash. If they want better housing, they can get it from the cash that's given. If they want to buy groceries, the cash is there.

I do support reparations, though I'm uneasy about it being paid for through general taxation because it may end up disproportionately coming out of the pocket of people who were actually affected by slavery. There would need to be a specific, targeted tax on industries or corporations which directly benefit from the past subjugation of slaves. Or maybe it could be funded by selling government bonds or from government profits.

In theory yes they should, but I dont trust the government to do right and they would resentment by others and some people wil believe that its not enough - its true, its not Enough, but well never be able to give enough reparations

Sure. The argument that the people around today have nothing to do with it (which is dubious) and that there's no one alive today who was a slave doesn't really hold any water.

Slaves didn't do anything to justify the slavery they got. I don't see why we have to justify giving reparations either.

There should have been, now it's a bit too late.

@The_Critic @VigorouslySwish why not for slavery? You feel the statute of limitations has expired on actual slavery?

I'm all for reparations. Not just for slavery, but for any damage done during the civil rights era, the relatives of the victims of the Tulsa bombings, Native Americans that were never compensated over loss of land and dead/missing relatives, wrongly deported Latin Americans, and aforementioned mistreatment of Japanese and other Asians mistreated after WWII.

MICHALECOLE posted...

@The_Critic @VigorouslySwish why not for slavery? You feel the statute of limitations has expired on actual slavery?

Lot of reasons.

First there has to be a point in time where you say its just ancient history at this point. For me its the 20th century. Anything 1900 or newer feels like it's part of "our" problems to solve.

Second those that directly did harm and those directly that were harmed are all long gone. Last formerly enslaved person died in the 1970s.

Third, I think the US paid for its involvement in slavery via the civil war. At the end of the day I don't hold the US as responsible for slavery as I do UK, Portugal, France, Netherlands, Denmark, and Spain. They upheld the institution for 300 years, the US upheld it for under 80 years. ~5% of American men died in the civil war.

Fourth, there are great records on who owned slaves. There are not great records on which individuals were enslaved. If you require actual evidence, you are leaving out a lot of people, if you don't, you are opening the doors wider than they should be. What about decedents of people who were previously northern slaves but freed before the civil war. Do they get reparations? What about slaves who were freed before the founding of the US? Do they get reparations?

Overall I think we can take enough responsibility with paying for Jim Crow and how it harmed black people. Many of the people harmed by it are still alive, and many of the people responsible are still alive. So let's get that figured out and done.