(06-29-2019, 09:13 AM)jj82284 Wrote:

(06-28-2019, 09:14 PM)mikesez Wrote: I don't know anybody in real life who thinks that paying reparations is possible or desirable.

Personally, I acknowledge that this country owes the descendants of slaves something.

At the very least, we should acknowledge how a lot of the intense economic development that happened in the Americas during the years 1500 to 1890, that we still enjoy the fruits of today, was on their uncompensated and abused backs. That's like morally the bare minimum. Acknowledge it and don't make excuses for it.

The next thing we can do is recognize that this gives our government, which aided and abetted this practice for so long, a duty to specially uplift communities of color. I think we can do that through certain color blind policies that are targeted at the poor in general.

1.) That's not true.  If Slavery in and of itself was a catalyst for massive economic growth then the societies that practice it today wouldn't be economically backward.  The south would have been leading in economic development instead of lagging for so long.  The German Miracle post WWII had nothing to do with Slavery.  The Japanese expansion had nothing to do with slavery.  Hong Kong had nothing to do with Slavery.  Etc.  The argument that America's wealth especially current wealth is as a result of slavery is asinine.  

2.) As for the idea that government intervention lifts anyone up, the facts, again, are against you.  Since the declaration of a War on poverty we have redistributed more than 20 trillion dollars in welfare and entitlements.  We spend more than any country in the history of mankind on public schools.  The poverty rate is almost identical to when we got started in the first place.  Where is the dividend that Government intervention is some magic boon that will uplift the huddled masses?The benefits haven't been felt, but the underlying insolvency of large entitlements will be.    

During the whole of slavery and segregation A black child had a far greater chance of being raised in a two parent household than they do today.  During the post WWII era between 45 and 60 Black men owned businesses at a rate of 40%, Blacks lead middle class expansion, black teen unemployment was lower than whites and marriage rates were equivalent to or higher than that of their white counterparts.  Over that time the poverty rate shrank from 87% to 47%, one of the most dramatic economic expansions  in history just based on the numbers, let alone the backdrop of Jim Crow.  What happened?  "Hello, I'm from the government and I'm here to help!"  We instituted programs that subsidized abandonment and did what 400 years of slavery and a hundred years of Jim Crow couldn't do, we destroyed the black nuclear family.  

3.) Why is it always the GOVERNMENT in general that takes the blame.  In 1860 all slaves were owned by democrats.  Jim Crow Laws were PASSED by Democrats.  Social Security was passed with the explicit promise that it wouldn't cover certain black dominated industries, and in exchange for not passing anti lynching laws.  FDR appointed a former klansman to SCOTUS Truman's secretary of state talked about America as a white country, LBJ is suspected of being affiliated with The Klan and used the N word more frequently than Chris Rock.  Why is it that slavery has been ascribed to the country as a whole when by and large slavery and segregation lie at the feet of one political party?  

4.) Russel Wilson is also the descendant of Slave owners.  If you or anyone thinks that you have pure lineage then you're kidding yourselves.  Not only did blacks enslave other blacks in Africa, (then and now) but blacks owned slaves in the CSA.  Oprah's family owned slaves, Kamala Harris' Family owned slaves etc. etc. etc.  

5.) Heritage doesn't have squat to do with immigration policy.  "As a descendant of a slave I think 2 + 2 = 6"  Life doesn't work that way.  In order to acknowledge that the individual has sovereignty we should strip the sovereignty of the state?  In what world does that make sense?

1) Slavery is a boon to pre-industrial societies. In a pre-industrial society things like houses and roads are built by slaves, and the harvesting and extraction is done by slaves. The houses and roads persist as the society industrializes. But high rates of slavery also held those same societies back from industrializing. An industrial society like post world War II Germany does not just emerge ex nihilio. it always emerges from a pre-industrial society, or as a colony of a society that is already industrialized, as was the case in Hong Kong. the industrial revolution had not yet taken place at the time of American independence.

2) your numbers are probably out of date.  Families of all races are decaying, and last I checked, a black child is more likely to live with his biological father than a white child, today.

3) it's much easier to leave or join a political  party than it is to leave or join a country.  So it's much easier to argue that the country as a whole bears moral debts from events 50 or 150 years ago, than it is to claim that a political party does.

4) blacks owning slaves was rare on this continent. Again, the whole point is what condition they were in as they immigrated, to explain why they immigrated.  Discussing conditions in Africa, past or present, is besides the point, and it invites a conversation about the history of colonies like Liberia and Congo, that I don't think you want to have..

5) Russell Wilson's story frustrates both of the leading narratives of immigration. Trump supporters like to brag about how their ancestors came here legally... Of course they did! there were no immigration laws back then, is that what they want to return to. Democrats like to quote the statue of liberty's poem, as if, in the age of airplanes and interstate highways, we can afford to have the same attitudes about migration that we had in the age of steamships and steam locomotives. Russell Wilson shows that both narratives are missing a lot of pertinent facts.

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