2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Ta-Nehisi Coates: Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations? [View all]tishaLA
(14,708 posts)Second: The root of Mr Coates' arguments in favor of reparations is not "slavery," but an apartheid system in the United States, including housing, access to capital, economic marginalization, etc. Slavery is a starting point, but, as he argues in "The Case for Reparations," the sins begun in slavery continued well after emancipation as we moved on to Jim Crow, lynchings, red lining, predatory lending, etc.
Third: One of Mr Coates' key points, to my mind, is that Sen. Sanders' argument about the impossibility of reparations is in direct contradiction to other things he advocates that are also "impossible"--if one believes in incrementalism. Things like single payer health care, free college, etc. Of those forms of impossibility, Mr Coates is asking, why does one meet with immediate dismissal as unfeasible while others are embraced?