White Americans 100 years of shame - 1865 to 1965

[mandyky]

Note: I am white and I get so peeved at people who are anti-reparations.

For 100 years, between the Civil War and the Voting Rights Act our country lynched, segregated, and continued to exploit and misuse Black American, especially inthe South. But I am from rural upstate NY, what do I know?

What I know is one county over (and probably some of our county's citizens) there was a large group of KKK who burned crosses on a regular basis, so I am assuming it was even worse in the South.

I hear all these arguements against reparations because we fought "that war to free them". Well, we did not give "them" their 40 acres and mule, or make sure they were educated. No, "we" were so scared of "their" freedom, we segregated schools and businesses and transportation. If "an uppity" black freeman (or woman) had the audicity to say no without saying sir or looked "funny" at a white person "they" were beaten, lynched or some other horrible act.

I worked in a factory during the early 70's and one of my co-workers had a black husband. She told me when they travelled in the South they had to check into motels and sneak the other in. She told me of burning crosses and other such things.

Hopefully, our next hundred years get better, but we have to stop electing people like GW.

[HamdenRice]

1. The most important insight of your post ...

is the the reparations argument is not based only on slavery, of which there are no survivors; but also of the 100 years of segregation that followed.

Also, many DUers don't realize that local variants of reparations have actually been adopted. Tulsa has established a commission to study reparations because of the Tulsa race riot in which the entire black community was driven and burned out of the city, and Florida has provided reparations for the ethnic cleansing of the town of Rosewood, Florida.

So the idea common on DU that reparations are bizarre and beyond the pale simply doesn't hold up to reality.

Try saying that in a general forum, however, and you will be shouted down and the moderators will lock or delete your posts and threaten to ban you.

[kwassa]

6. There are many people alive today that suffered from Jim Crow

segregation, and the reduced opportunities for education, jobs, housing, and everything that it lead to.

My wife was the first black child to integrate a previously all-white school, in kindergarten in 1965. This isn't ancient history, this is our lifetimes. This was also 11 years after Brown vs. the Board of Education. It took that long there.

Three great misunderstandings: that the Emancipation Proclamation made everything o.k., that Brown vs. the Board made everything o.k. in schools, and that the Civil Rights Act of 1965 insured perfect voting forever.

There is a great difference between passing a law, and getting it enforced.

[fortyfeetunder]

2. Another point in your insight

I noticed in the reparations thread about several posters saying their ancestors immigrated after the Emancipation Proclamation (EP).

To which I posted the major civil rights acts granting Blacks equal access to education, housing, voting, serving in the military, and employment occurred 99-105 years after the EP.

And I have my doubts voting rights have been entirely restored, seeing the 2000 and 2004 election outcomes in Florida and Ohio.

Maybe these folks might have been immigrants and not part of the conditions leading up to the EP, but they certainly no doubt about it, benefited from the access to mainstream America Blacks have been denied.

[Solly Mack]

3. and then there's Rosewood, Tulsa, Forsyth

where white's terrorized, murdered, torched and pillaged..and stole land from the black residents.

Land (homes & communities) that should be paid for...made amends for....wrongs that should and need to be made right.

reparations won't solve racism... but it's not meant to...it's righting a wrong ( a long list of wrongs)...something that would never be questioned if someone black had stolen the home/land of someone white...my head spins at how quick the white person would get reparations

[kk897]

5. I'll say it again...

I said in another thread in GD (I think) about the kid getting called "cracker": payback's a bitch, huh?

Seriously, there has to be some huge effort to even *attempt* to right the wrongs of the past (and the present). White people have a huge karmic debt to pay off, and sometimes it's not going to be pleasant.

Also, there are repercussions for events that continue to spread far and wide, a la chaos theory. A kid getting called "cracker" today is a repercussion of hundreds of years of torture and oppression. A society can't get its hands so filthy and expect the filth to come off with just a little soap and water. It's going to take some scrubbing, and scrubbing can hurt. Further, maybe it *should* hurt; perhaps that would serve as a reminder to never wallow in the mud again.

How's that for torturing...a metaphor! Sorry, but I get worked up sometimes.

[mandyky]

4. I think guilt and shame drive these folks

I had a cheating husband once upon a time and he used to accuse me of all sorts of untrue nonsense. What I came to know after we had split was, the times he was accusing me were the time he was messing around.

I think fear, guilt and shame all had a lot to do with the behavior of "white America" towards blacks, even until this day. Back in the late 70's there was even talk of a "black against white war", while I was in the military. Probably some of my colleagues spouting this were listening to Rush Limpballs or some other hate radio.

[Brewman_Jax]

7. Jim Crow laws and policies

are in this article at http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/what.htm I was shocked at reading those. :cry: Let there be no mistaking what those laws and codes were meant to do--enforce and maintain the racial caste system.

[GOPFighter]

8. I'm against reparations, not because I don't believe...

...it's deserved, but because it would be a true nightmare to set up, pay out, determine who gets payments, and who pays. And once reparations are paid, most Americans would consider the injustice done to blacks paid in full. All affirmative action programs would end and whites would say the playing field is now level. Discrimination would not end, though, it might even increase. There are just too many negative ramifications here.

I would much prefer that this country set aside a large sum of money to be used to improve inner city schools (build new buildings, provide high salaries to attract the best teachers), and housing, rural poverty, provide scholarships for black high school graduates to pay for college or trade schools, or job training, open drug treatment centers, help train black inmates and provide social help after they get out, provide startup funding for black businesses. In other words, use the money to help those who need it the most.

I'm writing this on my lunch break and I'm sure my feelings haven't been thoroughly developed, but I have real misgivings about personal reparations.

[kwassa]

9. Randall Robinson on reparations

Randall Robinson has written the most on reparations, and is sort of the father of the modern reparations push.

Here is a simple statement of some of his views from an article.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3812/is_200011/ai_n8911071

TransAfrica's Randall Robinson: Leading the growing reparations movement

New Crisis, The, Nov/Dec 2000 by Brown, C Stone

quote from article:

Robinson envisions a similar model for black reparations, with government and private institutions shouldering responsibility for payment. He opposes reparations in the form of checks to individuals, and proposes instead the establishment of a reparations trust fund with an education, health, economic and employment element available to individuals permanently stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder. This money would come from the U.S. government, corporate and private institutions that unjustly benefited from slavery.

"I believe that such a trust would have to be funded for at least two successive K-college educational generations, perhaps longer," Robinson says

[mandyky]

10. I have long thought that minorities should

be offered a way out of inner cities. I worked at a Job Corps in Upstate NY, and told all my "kids" to consider not moving back to the city (NYC). People with few skills, are lucky if they earn a minimum wage, and how do people in cities live on that (esp NYC and other large cities).

People are less likely to be caught in drugs traficking and gangs in rural areas or smaller cties. An extended family of 12 or so people could be moved and "maintained" to a medium sized city for a lot less than it would cost to"maintain" those people in a large city like NY.