Hey, I don’t have time to respond at length right now but I don’t want to make it seem as if I ignored your thoughtful post. So I’ll just say a few things for now.
I’m not arguing for reparations; I just want to make that clear. I’m torn on the matter.
I asked Work if it would be a good start for taking care of his/her grievance against white people. Most White haters in America, those who dehumanize white people , seem to never or seldom get around in conversation what they ultimately want to do to white people or what whites must do to finally atone for what they believe was wrongly done. Or if they recognize something has been done, will demand more be done until the final desired results are achieved. So I think in such conversation asking such a question is reasonable. Hence why I repeatedly asked Work for possible solutions for grievances.
Some of the brazen white haters have called for outright extermination or have said they wait for the day that there are no longer white people or that whites are a curse upon the earth.
I don’t see how looking at people to assess race is flawed for most cases. When I look at Dolph Lundgren I see a white guy. When I look at Michael Jordan I see a black man, or who one can reasonably classify as black despite the possibility of one drop of white blood. When I see a close friend of mine, I see an Asian man.
Besides, whoever would such a reparations programs would call the shots. Whether the criteria is logical or not would be besides the point of the power and decision making of them.
I might continue later. As said, I don’t like leaving people off the hook if they take time out to thoughtfully respond to my posts.
Thanks for the response. As you point out, race absolutely does exist in much the same way that hair color and eye color exist. It’s easy to agree that Michael Jordan looks black and Dolph Lundgren doesn’t.
However, in much the same way that racists and slavers of the past couldn’t justify their ideology on physical appearance alone and needed to attach deeper meaning to these characteristics, the modern leftist ideology of diversity/antiracism/affirmative action/etc. breaks down once we acknowledge that race is just a set of physical appearance characteristics. You’ll often hear things about shared culture, “lived experiences,” or similar. Of course, cultures and life experiences vary and are shared by some and not others. But this is not well correlated to skin color. People like Tiger Woods, Kamala Harris, and Barack Obama are considered black on the basis of physical appearance alone.
I think it is important to nail down a precise definition of race before any other discussion about race can be meaningful. Many people avoid doing this because it makes the shallowness and logical inconsistency of race based ideologies and policies transparent.
At least with Tiger, it depends on who you ask. Asians seem to claim him as Asian. Especially if they are into golf. I’ve heard “Tiger is the best Asian golfer”.
There is evidence of human remains in Southern California (around San Diego if I’m not mistaken) the dates back to approximately 200,000 years ago as well… just saying that data doesn’t ‘conclude’ anything when we haven’t dug up the whole earth looking for evidence.
I think it’s important to understand what the world looked like 200,000 years ago as well. Many people think the world looked like it does now, but with ice - when in reality it looked the same but with 400ft lower sea levels. Now:
Note the south asian sea, the north american land bridge between russia and alaska, north america to greenland, greenland to iceland, great britain, the mediterranian sea, red sea, and bahamas.
Now: Then:
IDK how your school system taught y’all over there, but OUR school system basically taught us wrong. We had no clue what the world looked like back then, and to act like we understand what happened in finality displays a tremendous amount of hubris.
That will conclude today’s lesson in “Why We Don’t Know Shit About Our Own History 101”.
I am not. Nobody alive today was ever a slave and I never owned slaves.
Why should I pay for the crimes of my ancestors on my dad’s side?
If somebodies family member murdered or raped my family member, should I be able to hold future generations of their accountable for the actions of another?
Just throwing this out there. I am perhaps in favor of reparations with a big caveat. They are paid by people shown to have benefited from slavery, and they are limited as to not financially destroy those that did benefit.
So the large plantation owners that are still around would be on the hook. I’d say that it would need to be shown how much was handed down to them, and how much of what was handed down was there because of slavery. That would be the only money that would be fair game. I think it is reasonable to make the case that it isn’t actually their money in that case.
I believe with these conditions, that it would be fair. The problem is that it would be such a small amount of money that it wouldn’t be worth distributing.
One third of the African people live in true poverty. I’m not talking USA level poverty but true poverty. Yet, 2/3 of Forbes richest Black people are USA citizens. Ponder that. Who benefited really in the long run?
Well, the US is going to have trouble getting anybody other than the descendants of those that owned slaves on the hook.
I think you could quantify it as stolen labor. So if my grandpa didn’t pay your grandpa for a year of labor, and there is evidence that money went to me, I’d see it reasonable to owe you money.
But, I think my idea of acceptable reparations wouldn’t amount to anything significant. Under my conditions, it would have to be shown that the money was handed down and is still there. There just wouldn’t be much there.
And if your grandpa housed and fed my grandpa without pay, in exchange for work - does your family still owe my family money? There are live-in nannies with this exact deal right now.
On this premiss, I’d argue that the slave owners should get reparations for the government taking their property. Did they get refunded for their purchase price?
^This is why the entire reparations argument is shit and will always BE shit.
My ancestors are Irish, and my wife’s family is Jewish. Do WE get repaid for prior slavery? What about our daughter - should she get paid as well, or is this a one-time deal?
Do the black families who owned black slaves have to pay reparations too?
Forget reparations, I want infrastructure (roads,bridges,buildings,SCHOOLS). An awesome school district can do a lot for future generations of low income families. Scaly old lizard right-wingers don’t want that for some reason, they just want to watch the world burn.
I would also love good police officers stationed in those bad areas. In Baltimore (idk what part), I’ve seen like these little offices where like one police officer hangs out there. I thought that was pretty cool and it made me feel safe.
(This is a legitimate Tlgains opinion formed by how he feels it’s incredibly ridiculous that they’re are poor areas in a rather wealthy country, like inner cities)
You have to remember they are only poor in comparison to the wealthy areas. The only thing government policy/force can sustainably do is make those poor areas larger and worse off(edit: I.e., create more, poorer folks).
Actually, we want school choice - which would give yall better schools. But that’s a scaly old lizard white-winger opinion that democrats have told you is oppressive for some inexplicable reason.
Part of me—and I’ll emphasize this again: PART of me—sometimes thinks of this as an alternative that is superior to kicking the can down the road and having the USA putter along into eternity in a state of sickness and dysfunction, in the hopes that something better could be built afterwards. That’s the premise of my Balkanization/Civil War thread, a reshuffling of the cards, so to speak.
But then the other part of me, after thinking of such a scenario asks myself, “Do I really want this? Do you understand what would happen in societal collapse? Am I up for that?”
I’m prepared better than 99.9999% of people for it, have the resources, the manpower, and all the things one would need, but I have young children and it’s really the last thing I want.
The conditions in some parts of the US are inexcusable one way or another.
However, I ask you, have you ever worked or lived in an inner city or another poor area? I have, for about a grand total of fifteen years, plus more time spending some time in such areas and outside of work or any obligations.
Do you know the life histories of many poor people? What decisions they make? How they treat their family members and their own towns and homes? What are their habits?
Certainly there are good people who are poor by no fault of their own. And I think these people should be helped. One of my fears in life is being struck by some God-forsaken disability or disaster that leaves me unable to work. I think one of the worse things a man can experience is unemployment. However what I see is that there’s a sort of pervasive call for the rest of us to do things for the poor, as if we owe all of them. Does anyone out there ever consider what the poor do to us or what many, though not all, do to become poor?
