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ORIGINAL: Silence8

Maybe since you're not American (right?) you don't see these issues.

Do you really think, for instance, that schools in the cities (that serve mainly black students) are of the same quality as schools in the suburbs (that serves mainly white students)?

Forget reparations, for the moment. How about actual equality for once?

But, yeah, I doubt many people would turn down a check in the mail!

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

The implication here is that we should be thankful for slavery, because if not for slavery then we wouldn't live in this great country.  Part of the reason the country is great is because of the work of the slaves in the first place.

Imagine if one day you got raped, and the rapist says, "Sure, I raped you, but look at all the wonderful friends you made at your support group."

No, the implication is that something that happened over 150 years ago is not interchangeable with something that happens today.

And it would be more like if some guy rescued me from drowning in a lake, and says "Hey, just for the record, my great-great-grandfather raped your great-great grandmother, so uh, feel free to yell at me and say I should have left you in the lake."

Ok first, Africa is a big continent.  Africa does not equal dying before 30 from civil war/famine/AIDS/violent rape and murder/all of the above.  In many places that's true, in many places that is not true.  Just like in California. 

Second, your counter-analogy is god-awful.  It would make more sense if the guy got you out of the lake, raped you, and then it turned out there were sharks in the lake.  Even then, would you be like, "Thanks for the rape dude!" Probably not.  Especially since he made YOU do all the paddling.

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

Ok first, Africa is a big continent.  Africa does not equal dying before 30 from civil war/famine/AIDS/violent rape and murder/all of the above.  In many places that's true, in many places that is not true.  Just like in California. 

Second, your counter-analogy is god-awful.  It would make more sense if the guy got you out of the lake, raped you, and then it turned out there were sharks in the lake.  Even then, would you be like, "Thanks for the rape dude!" Probably not.  Especially since he made YOU do all the paddling.

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

Wow, I don't know where to begin...
Fortunatly I do....so lets take a look at your bullet points
Before I begin, let me say that I think that trying to get reparations for slavery is a lost cause.  Whether it's justified or not, I don't think its ever going to happen, and I certainly don't have the answers for how to go about paying reparations.  But it's some of the rebuttal arguments here against the reparations that I find.... troubling.  I think best with bullet points, so here we go:
I think most would agree with you...whether justified or not it is unworkable....but for a minute lets look at justification.Suppose we are discussing general reparations....try to make a case why any American today should pay for crimes commited a few generations ago.
Suppose we look at Banks and Corporations that it can be shown profited from the slave trade hundreds of years ago....Do the current investors of those same banks and corporations owe a debt for profits they never realised.Perhaps my grandmother bought stock in said bank 89 years ago....why should the value of those stocks take a hit,damaging my portfolio today....I,and my grandmother had nothing to do with slavery....just a few of the arguments against reparation...I' sure you and others could make a case for reparations.
I'm just playing Devils advocate here.

• When people like to stress the role of African slave traders in the trade here in America, my question is always "What difference does it make?"  How long did it take for that African to sell that slave? A couple days?   The next couple hundred years of rape, murder, and being worked to death happened here. Once they had their shiny new slave they could have let him go.  But they chose to keep him down.  The 1st generation slave might have been sold by Africans, but his children, and his children's children, were all bought, sold, and put to work, here.  Did Africa have slavery?  Yes. You know what else Africa had? Murder.  Now does that justify the murder of black people in America, or is murder wrong no matter where it happens?
  
• One I don't understand the whole "peopl like to stress" part...read the link,it has nothing to do with "stressing" it has to do with realising and addressing African complicity in the trade.
  
• What the legnth of time the deal takes to make is completley beyond me....and where you get the idea that anyone ...here or Mr Gates in the Op-Ed is trying or seeking in any way shape or form to justify anything is beyond me.
  
• Is this subject too volatile for you to discuss it in a dispassionate way? Were you able to actually read the columm that prompted this thread?
  

• People need to understand what the "Come on, slavery happened way back then" mindset sounds like to the rest of us. Sort of like a extinguishing a burning man and then telling him, "Yeah I know, setting you on fire was kind up messed up, but it's in the past now" and then refusing to acknowledge that he still has the burns.  I started to go into this rant about the long term effects of slavery on race and class but I'm sure I don't need to, I have faith in you all :-) 
  
• I'm not sure which of the posters,if any has givent that sort of reaction to slavery itself.Nothing I have read on this thread comes off like that....yes reparations is rejected along the lines of "we never owned slaves so why should we pay reparations"...Is that not a valid argument.The flip side of that is "you were never a slave why are you due compensation".Can that argument be rejected out of hand?
  
• In my opinion...though one could argue the opposite...one can not deny that both of those views have validity.

• Let those other countries that have slavery in their pasts worry about how to deal with slavery.  This is our country so we're dealing with our slavery issues.  And the reality is, that the country is what it is today because of the hundreds of years of free labor that fueled the economy of the fledgling nation.  The whole reparations argument, futile as it may be, is about more than, "Oops, slavery. My bad." It's also about recompense for building the country.
  
• Not one poster here has come across with such a flippant attitude...and niether did Mr Gates piece....as a matter of fact other than perhaps Brain,Silence and apparently you...everyone else gave the gentlemans piece a great deal of respect.

But like I said, won't ever happen, so it's a non-issue.
Yes,it is.

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If anything, school funding should be equally distributed, and private schools should be either shut down or forced to equally represent all classes with progressive fee policies. Otherwise it's the same old segregation, just keep changing the terms so that no one presumably will notice.

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ORIGINAL: Silence8

Harrison Bergeron is Vonnegut at his lowest.

Helping out the underclasses isn't the same as handicapping the most capable, except according to Tea Partiers.

Precisely the opposite -- deregulating the rich basically caused the financial reform. Not black people who were targeted for 'sub prime' mortgages.

I'm pushing for a world where none of the citizens are 'subprime'.

If anything, school funding should be equally distributed, and private schools should be either shut down or forced to equally represent all classes with progressive fee policies. Otherwise it's the same old segregation, just keep changing the terms so that no one presumably will notice.

There are more radical theoretical points I could make here, but... 'you can't handle the truth'! What do you think the first property was, anyway?

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

I think that you misunderstand me, just a bit.   I'm not saying that modern whites need to pay modern black people back for slavery.  I'm saying that I don't feel like people are acknowledging the long-reaching implications of the institution at all.  Here, maybe another analogy would help (sorry, it's just that I think in example, like that one guy from that Star Trek episode)

Your dad mugs my dad.  Now my dad has no money, and your dad has money.  When he dies, he leaves that money to you.  I say, "Hm, something's wrong here" and you say, "So? I didn't rob you!"

Nothing about that bothers you? That's all I'm saying.

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ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

My ancestors were from Sicily. That should qualify for some dough.

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

I think that you misunderstand me, just a bit.   I'm not saying that modern whites need to pay modern black people back for slavery.  I'm saying that I don't feel like people are acknowledging the long-reaching implications of the institution at all.  Here, maybe another analogy would help (sorry, it's just that I think in example, like that one guy from that Star Trek episode)

Your dad mugs my dad.  Now my dad has no money, and your dad has money.  When he dies, he leaves that money to you.  I say, "Hm, something's wrong here" and you say, "So? I didn't rob you!"

Nothing about that bothers you? That's all I'm saying.

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

I think that you misunderstand me, just a bit.   I'm not saying that modern whites need to pay modern black people back for slavery.  I'm saying that I don't feel like people are acknowledging the long-reaching implications of the institution at all.  Here, maybe another analogy would help (sorry, it's just that I think in example, like that one guy from that Star Trek episode)

Your dad mugs my dad.  Now my dad has no money, and your dad has money.  When he dies, he leaves that money to you.  I say, "Hm, something's wrong here" and you say, "So? I didn't rob you!"

Nothing about that bothers you? That's all I'm saying.

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If the transactions were legally made at that time, then you'd be trying to pass an unconstitutional law now to try to enforce any modern collection of reparations.

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

  I'm saying that I don't feel like people are acknowledging the long-reaching implications of the institution at all. 

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Here, maybe another analogy would help.

Your dad mugs my dad.  Now my dad has no money, and your dad has money.  When he dies, he leaves that money to you.  I say, "Hm, something's wrong here" and you say, "So? I didn't rob you!"

Nothing about that bothers you? That's all I'm saying

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

Elisabella,

There is definitely NOT a world of difference between class discrimination and race discrimination.  Some, but not much. Ever notice how in many cases poverty can divide along racial lines?  I believe that class discrimination often has a racial basis. 

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ORIGINAL: ShoreBound149

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ORIGINAL: VioletGray

I'm saying that I don't feel like people are acknowledging the long-reaching implications of the institution at all. 

Most people I know clearly understand that historically Black people got screwed.

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Here, maybe another analogy would help.

Your dad mugs my dad.  Now my dad has no money, and your dad has money.  When he dies, he leaves that money to you.  I say, "Hm, something's wrong here" and you say, "So? I didn't rob you!"

Nothing about that bothers you? That's all I'm saying

Bad analogy. No one in my family tree owned slaves. In fact, most white people didn't own slaves. It was a relatively small percentage of the overall white population (the rich landowner folks) that owned slaves many generations ago. It's not as easy a one to one analogy as "my dad versus your dad".

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The difference between class inequality and racial inequality is that the advantages of being upper class are directly tied to money (as money is the primary form of exchange used, having more money means having more opportunity to exchange) whereas there is nothing inherent about skin color to say one shade is more or less valuable than the other.