Reparations I Can Get Behind

I think I can actually support this kind of reparations if it can be conclusively proven the land was taken without compensation.

I don’t disagree. There will be some issues with it though. From the article:

Is current market value appropriate? That land may have been developed and thus worth a lot more.

The article mentions that some of the land is on a college campus. That campus likely wouldn’t have been put there had they not owned all the land. The campus makes the land worth a lot more than say farmland.

Another issue is that giving back the land may result in taking land that the owner didn’t steal, but bought it after it was stolen. I don’t see actually giving back the land as a viable solution. I can agree with paying people for it, but as I mentioned above figuring out value in a fair way is tough.

Good idea I think,
Legally an absolute nightmare

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If you are talking about land, then you must find the original owners or their offspring

indians, aztecs, spaniards, mexicans…it won’t be the whites or the blacks, they came much later

good luck with that

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That’s pretty close in idiocracy to a cash payment from non slave owners to those that were never slaves. We are NOW a modern society. Equality has made leaps and bounds in the past 50 years, with the exception of the pendulum swinging to far in some cases.

Conquering land etc is part of history was acceptable until very recent times historically. If somebody was robbed or disenfranchised by current laws and standard, sure they deserve to be heard. This is total and utter bullshit and part of the propaganda machine. Nothing will ever come of it because it would be impossible to undo. Not that it should be undone.

Send me your address and I’ll send you a bill for your portion of the reparations. You can pay mine too. :grinning:

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It the Indians, Aztecs, Spaniards, or Mexicans can produce a deed that was valid in the United States of America, then absolutely.

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From your article…
“ In the years that followed, documents appear to show their parents, Willie and Lola Jones, signed the deed over to the chief of the Huntsville Land Acquisition office”

They claim to have been taken advantage of but that’s their side of the story. I’ve seen plenty of claims like that with no merit. Again… this was 70 years ago.

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This has the same problem as all other reparations schemes. Stuff happened in the past. None of that is the fault of most people living today, but much of it has a negative effect on people living today. Which people deserve to be compensated for the bad in the past that affected them? Which people are SOL? How much should the compensation be?

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As a one off idea, sure. Return what was stolen to rightful owners.

But ownership has likely changed hands many times over the generations and the current owners likely had nothing to do with the original theft. Would they be compensated too?

And to what extent? Parking lots, as pictured, are cash cows. Is the operator due an estimated lifetime of earnings from the taxpayer for handing it over?

Is the black family really entitled to market value of an operated parking lot even though they didn’t build the business creating its value? Are other black families whose land became garbage dumps or otherwise worthless just shit out of luck in a reparations lotto?

Since the land was stolen ~150 years ago, does it make more sense to repay the stolen value of whatever its valuation would’ve been at the time of the crime?

How far back do we take the idea? Do the black families owe the land to Indians? Do those Indians owe it to tribes they took it from at some point in history?

Should the African descendants whose ancestors sold the slaves to traders to begin with foot the bill?

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Tongue in cheek, but what indians? White Americans damn near killed all of them, genocide.

In reality they still exist, however

Just like African tribal leaders should take part in African American reparation discussions, where does the buck stop?

This is basically my take (post #2 on this thread). I agree with the issues you listed.

They are about 3% of the population. I know some of them. About 10 million total.

It is totally fair in talks about reparations to bring up the Native Americans if we are actually considering it for African Americans.

There is a huge wealth disparity among Native Americans. If the tribe was lucky enough to be located in a state that only allows Indian gaming, and they are close to a big city, they are very wealthy. If they didn’t get that luck, most are very poor. I’d be in favor of having gaming profits be split among all Native tribes vs just the lucky ones who hoard it all.

My wife & son.

Certain parts of the US have a pretty good population of mixed heritage.

This is where it gets murky for me. They weren’t one big, happy, Indian family that fat, green haired, white woke women and their movements tend to imply.

Tribes were essentially little nation states, sometimes with existing peace and trade treaties and sometimes at war over territory boundaries, resource access and likely even cultural differences.

This would be like forcing the Muslim Palestinians and Jews to live in the same house and share resources, and naively/arrogantly expect them to get along after thousands of years of culture difference and territory spats. Would you really tell Israel to give half their wealth to the Palestinians and expect to come out shining?

These issues are much more complex than “whites owe non-whites”.

Bullshit anyways, we were just the stronger “tribe”. Every other culture, including Indians, kept slaves, land and resources from conquered peoples as well.

The difference? We eventually let ours have a voice.

FWIW, my wife is half Native American, making my daughter 1/3. She is living well and does not want to be in a teepee.

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Different time, even more so than african Americans. The farther back you go the more acceptable inhumane practices or conquering of other cultures becomes the norm.

Agree. Many tribes were quite savage and violent.

I’d think you’d have to tax gaming profits, and only allocate those taxes for wealth distribution to poorer tribes.

I am generally hesitant on wealth redistribution. In this case though, the wealthy aren’t wealthy on their own merit. It is because of luck of location (that the government decided), and that locations gaming laws.

I know a guy that is part of the Mdewakanton Sioux tribe. He is basically unemployed, but he gets around $1 million a year in gaming payments.

One of my two best friend’s wife is Lakota Sioux. She doesn’t get even a half of a percent of what that other guy gets. IIRC, she gets $2,000 per year. She works way harder than the other guy. The only differences to me is that his ancestors got put on a reservation in a state that only allows Indian gaming, and happened to be just outside of what would become the Twin Cities, and her ancestors got put in the middle of South Dakota in an area where no large cities would be developed.

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Sounds to me like they should fight it out. Like they used to. Winner takes all. Tax distribution is wealth redistribution.

Buffalo soldiers.

No way bro. Bob Marley wrote about them and Bob Marley=weed=good.

So buffalo soldiers = good.

Maybe African tribal leaders should be involved in Reparations discussions?

“We’re gonna get your reparations, and we’re gonna make Africa pay for it!”

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