2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Ta-Nehisi Coates: Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations? [View all]TM99
(8,352 posts)Yes, there is apartheid in this country. Yes, we need economic and social justice reforms to fix this. Yes, Sanders is the only candidate with the history and the policy positions today that is advocating for that level of change.
Reparations are a one off pay out. Less than 15% of the population support that for good reasons. As I have stressed in my replies, a damned pay out of $20,000 does not change the system of apartheid. MLK's Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged advocated a systemic policy change not only for the blacks but also the poor & disadvantaged whites. He never supported 'reparations' as a one off pay out.
Why? In my opinion it is obvious. That pay out would be difficult to determine how much, for whom, and the justification to our entire culture of why one group is getting it hundreds of years later when no one alive was so then. This is not equivalent to the reparations of the Jews in Germany which occurred in the generation right after the war. The same with the Japanese here. This would be generations and generations after slavery and the oppression began. You claim the war on drugs is recent. Yes, it is still going on and Clinton still supports it. You can claim Jim Crow, but that was the South and not all of the US.
So what it comes back to is really a simple statement. Do you want to fight for a single pay out that has little support and would do very little in the long run to fix the real problems PoC have and still suffer from? Or do you want to fight for a candidate who will fight for a new Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged which will focus on changing the whole system so that not only this generation but future generations receive economic and social justice?
If you agree with Coates you support the first. It is selfish and short sighted. If you agree with MLK, you support the later and Sanders. Why attack the only candidate who is truly pushing a Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged?