Hope for reparations?

[loyalsister]

The way he connects the dots provodes for a very strong argument. It sounds familiar.....

[brooklynite]

1. Nobody will be pushing reparations; not even Bernie Sanders.

[Live and Learn]

3. Maybe not reparations but I bet he would agree with the argument. nt

[loyalsister]

4. Except he is pushing the model outlined in the video

He doesn't call it that because he wants to make it happen. But, targeted investments in communities hit hardest by unjust economic policies and mass incarceration is basically his economic platform. Notice the similarities to the video in the OP and how Bernie answers these questions.

[brooklynite]

6. So the folks in Appalachia are out of luck?

I would have thought he'd be pushing economic renewal wherever it was needed, which has nothing to do with reparations.

[loyalsister]

9. Actually no

If you had listened, you would have heard that rural areas and Appalachia are specifically mentioned as other targeted investment priorities.

[Live and Learn]

2. I thought the reparatation arguments were ridiculous but this guy makes a valid argument.

I can't even argue.

Thank you for sharing.

[Rex]

5. Never happen, the South would go bonkers.

IMO, reparations should have happened back during the civil rights movement and now should be done with compound interest included.

And while we are at it, I think we owe a few more groups some reparations...is it that hard for white men to swallow that murderous pride for at least 5 seconds? No? I can, but I don't count for anything.

Never happen, though it is long overdue imo.

[loyalsister]

7. This benefits white southerners

Targeted investments include white people.

"It’s not just black communities that have been stolen from, but the burden that black communities that been forced to bear is of a particular weight and inexorability.

So when we begin to talk about fighting for equality, we need to understand that black communities will never be equal without massive economic investment. You can’t just pull a knife out of a person’s leg and expect them to get up and win a race against a healthy runner. They need help: bandages, antibiotics, and time to heal.

The most common misconception of reparations is that it necessarily involves writing a check to every person who has been harmed. There is more than one way to administer aid. One framework that I’ve found particularly compelling recently is the idea of massive investments into education, housing, employment initiatives, and other services available to marginalized communities."

http://www.mnnoc.org/reparations2016

[Rex]

10. I meant the racist republican south.

There is no rationalizing with them, even if you can prove the outlook is better for everyone involved. Too far removed from reality imo.

Like I said I can think of a few groups that we should give some kind of restitution to as a way of paying what we owe to our own society.

[loyalsister]

11. Well, it has happened in a different context in N. Carolina

and is being pushed in Virginia. Immigrants, people of color, and disabled whites were targeted. Resitution and compensation are refer to reparative gestures in the interest of justice- reparations.

Victims of forced sterilization deserve a gesture of justice from Virginia

NORTH CAROLINA set a bold example of justice in 2013 by establishing a $10 million fund to locate and compensate surviving victims of the state’s barbaric, decades-long program of forced sterilization. Now Virginia, which ran a similarly aggressive campaign to deprive as many as 8,000 mentally ill, epileptic or otherwise “feebleminded” citizens of the ability to conceive children, has an opportunity to follow suit. It should.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/victims-of-forced-sterilization-deserve-a-gesture-of-justice-from-virginia/2016/02/18/d426c2a4-d5bd-11e5-be55-2cc3c1e4b76b_story.html?tid=ss_fb

[Rex]

12. Holyshit, forced sterilization?

That is just... WTF?

[FSogol]

13. Sad period in Va's history. The Nazi's actually came to Virginia to study the

Commonwealth's eugenics program. Not a subject they are quick to teach in US/VA History.

[Rex]

14. I've never heard of that, forced sterilization and that was my first thought.

Eugenics. Operation Paperclip.

[FSogol]

17. VA sterilized the mentally ill, the disabled, lots of black folks, habitual drug

addicts, people with VD, etc. The Nazis were quite impressed.

Mark Warner apologized on behalf of the state and has been trying to give some financial assistance to those affected, but it is DOA in the Republican-controlled State legislature.

[myrna minx]

16. That is so haunting. I just don't even know how to process it.

[Rex]

19. It is hard to believe we do that to ourselves.

[myrna minx]

21. It makes me want to cry.

[Rex]

22. That is a compassonate response, I would worry about the person that

had no reaction to such stories of atrocity. Just means you are human myrna minx, I personally feel revulsion over sorrow...revulsion and anger. I want justice for these innocent victims. It angers me to no end that we do this to each other. Humans are supposed to be the apex species, but we prove time and again to be just base creatures.

[myrna minx]

25. I'll get to anger - but I need to digest the horror first.

Thank you, Rex.

[loyalsister]

23. The SC ruling that enabled it has not been reversed

Oliver Wendal Homes wrote the majority opinion:

"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."

Although, white people were a part of the targeted population, people of color felt the brunt of it largely because biased tests were created in order for them to be clinically determined "unfit."

[Rex]

26. Good God that looks like something out of Mien Kampf!

I wish at 44 I could say nothing surprises me anymore, I knew about Operation Paperclip...but this is just something else. The evil and barbarism by the state is shocking. The inhumanity of it all is overwhelming when you first read about it.

[loyalsister]

27. As a matter of fact, it was the precursor

One of the strongest US advocates who led the Eugenics Records Office was Harry Laughlin

"Laughlin was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Heidelberg in 1936 for his work behalf of the “science of racial cleansing.” (Five other Americans received honorary degrees the same year)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_H._Laughlin

[Rex]

28. How interesting, America closes the door to their Eugenics Department in 1939.

While at the same time Hitler is signing a decree of involuntary euthanasia. The two programs are identical in their goals. Revolting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4

[loyalsister]

30. It's chilling

Something I find really creepy is how far it might have gone in the US if a madman had not taken it so far.

[Rex]

32. I am afraid all the way, our history is a shining example as to what we will do to each other.

Most probably think of history and mass atrocities are something in our past. And what really worries me the most is a Ted Cruz type person getting into the WH and seeing how far they can run with some kind of inhuman experiment to weed out those that they don't like or merely find undesirable to the states welfare.

NEVER AGAIN. Doesn't mean anything to people like Cruz and I am afraid Donald Trump might fall into that category of ignoble leaders with a fanatical bent.

[loyalsister]

34. They are terrifying

I wonder if there will ever be a time when mass incarceration, police eecutions, state sponsored executions, denying people housing, food, and healthcare will go down in infamy? Sadly, I have doubts that it will ever happen.

US culture is both actively and passively brutal. Donald Trump is Derek from American History X. When I first saw it, I thought his character was so extreme that he seemed absurd he would exist in reality. But, this character personifies the modern GOP.

[Rex]

36. I've heard a lot about American History X, but only seem parts and snippets.

Think I will hulu it tonight. Hopefully in our lifetimes we will see acts against society, become vile acts that get immediate and swift justice. None of this cloudy bureaucratic middle to hide behind for the offenders.

We have such a hard time talking about institutionalized racism, sexism and ageism. Without it getting into a shouting match of ideals while people still and continuously suffer under the weight of the system that was put in place to work against them.

We need to revamp the entire system and have serious discussions on the direction of this nation.

Instead we get Donald Trump dumped on us by the cable news channels.

[loyalsister]

40. It's hard to watch but the substance is worth it

We have a presidential candidate saying exactly the same thing as this campaign for reparations. That is encouraging to me.

[Rex]

46. It is past due and on the other side we have a group of fanatics.

We deny it a lot of times, but democracy stands on the head of a pin. I usually stay hopeful and will always believe in the strength in human nature being altruistic or heading in that direction. Many view that as good and the battle between those that want to do us harm be it one or millions as evil that is worth fighting.

Part of me is vain in ever thinking anyone could know the majority of atrocities committed. So many still daily committed around the world, millions daily, so much restitution in order imo.

[jwirr]

38. Forced sterilization was not the only way they kept people

from reproducing. Had two great aunts who were placed in mental institutions for life. Often in cases like this the whole extended family would be targeted.

To this day I do not understand why they did not take the rest of us.

[loyalsister]

48. Marriage restrictions and the one drop rule were a part of that too

It was codified white supremacy, allegedly validated by science. A very sad chapter in US history.

[jwirr]

49. Some times the modern suggestions for solving our problems

scare the living daylights out of me.

[myrna minx]

15. Oh my god. That took my breath away.

I just want to cry now.

[FSogol]

18. Sorry, the past can be a pretty terrible thing. n/t

[myrna minx]

20. The barbarity and cruelty is just so...shocking

It's important to confront, but I think I'll have some wine now.

[loyalsister]

29. Sorry :(

As hideously disturbing as it is, it should never be forgotten.

[myrna minx]

31. It's important - It should never be forgotten -

but *sob*. It makes everything else I've been posting about tonight seem..so..trivial.

[Marr]

8. Reparations would be the worst thing to happen to blacks in this country in a long time.

You'd be talking about a pittance, and it would it be spent in an economy that's owned by big corporate interests anyway.

What's more, it would be the end of broader consideration of issues facing the black community in this country. The attitude would quickly be one of resentment towards anyone who's perceived to be complaining after having free money given to them.

[loyalsister]

24. Yeah, more jobs, education, and economic development in black communities spells nothing but trouble

Maybe you should take a listen to the argument the man in the video makes.

[Marr]

45. No, all that is great.

I would've described that as plain old Keynesian economics and liberal social policy, personally. I don't see why anyone would want to affix a politically toxic word like 'reparations' to sound social and fiscal policy. Unless his goal was to reframe current demands for reparations as a call for something more broad, productive, and structural.

[loyalsister]

47. Here is the text of the argument he made

The isea is that the money comes from divestment away from prison system and investments target communities which have been hit hardest. TThey are not framing it as reparations, but at the end of the day, that's what they're talking about.

In social justice circles, we often talk of the abolition of the criminal justice system as it stands today: prejudiced, unaccountable, and dangerous. But when we finally arrive at that promised land, when we have deconstructed the American criminal justice system and created systems that empower us, what happens? When we have made it so none of our citizens feel endangered by the people who have sworn to protect and serve them, how will we move forward? Will we acknowledge that the war on drugs led to nothing but pain and lost opportunity for communities of color? Will we assess the financial and emotional costs of those lost opportunities?

The rest can be found here
http://www.mnnoc.org/reparations2016

[Lizzie Poppet]

33. How about reparations from the oligarchs...

...to the rest of us, first?

[loyalsister]

35. "the rest of us?"

Apparently you didn't read the thread or watch the videos.

[femmedem]

39. If you watch the video, you will hear the speaker address this.

The speaker points out that the average U.S. black family has 6% of the wealth of the average white family. He goes on to say that it is 6% of a smaller and smaller amount, because white families are also suffering as the 1% hordes ever more of our country's wealth. But, he rightly points out, that wealth has been extracted from the black community for a longer amount of time, from slavery to redlining and real estate covenents to predatory lending to for-profit prisons which pay prisoners $1/hour to make products which they then sell.

So I think he would agree that the money should come from the oligarchs, but it's hard to credibly make the argument that black people should wait to get reparations until after everyone else has gotten theirs first.

[jwirr]

37. The idea of reparations has always interested me but I don't

think the idea is a controversial as WHO would receive them.

The black ancestors in my family (several different lines) do not come from southern slavery. Mr. Bongo was brought to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by a British soldier. Both him and his wife remained slaves for the remainder of their life but their children married into the native tribes of Michigan and Minnesota. They were no longer counted as slaves. Instead they were counted in the native census rolls.

And I am sure that there other cases like this - how are people like this man and his family going to be counted in the idea of reparations?

[femmedem]

41. It doesn't have to be a matter of who so much as where and how.

Targeted investment in the areas hardest hit by redlining, or with census data that demonstrates the greatest need. Rebuilding schools and infrastructure, providing free housing. Reparations don't have to be in the form of checks sent out to individual people.

[jwirr]

43. I like that. It would mean that my family probably would

not get it but we do live in an area that is much better than what I read about here on DU.

I have said on here before that inner cities and reservations were basically overlooked after the New Deal - not because of FDR's programs but because local white leaders often did not include them.

This would be a way to target that neglect.

[loyalsister]

42. The beauty of this model is that it's focus is on the present

It is reparations for mass incarceration as an outgrowth of slavery. Divest from the prison industrial complex and invest in communities, especially those hit the hardest.

[jwirr]

44. Yes. And as I said above I like this idea.