Change My Mind

Slavery reparations for the past, yes.

I think it's stupid cuz i didn't commit the crime

And I'm not owned by anyone

Cool 👍

You wouldn't be surprised

I'm glad I live in Southern Europe, relatively distant and safe from all the madness of the modern (western) world. I'd quickly go insane if I had to deal with what an average American or Westerner has to deal with regarding the political matters. Main reason why I'm an anarchist, also.

Like Spain?

About two peninsulas to the east.

Monaco

Getting warmer, but it's still two peninsulas to the East.

Italy

Good, now it's one peninsula to the east.

A little hint, the peninsula has about ten countries whose nations all hate and despise each other.

One P**isula to the east is where a good % of my family is from

Turkey, I presume. Or maybe Arabia.

Ukraine. Now I realize it's not a P**isula only crimera

Ah Balkans

Bullseye!

I'll spare you on what country it is. It's Bosnia and Herzegovina. Debatebly the worst one to live in, other than Kosovo and Macedonia.

Yes

I've never owned slaves and my family never owned slaves. My family's came here in the 1890s and the 1940s as immigrants

Yeah pretty much the same for men on my dads side.
Not me mum she had a relative that came over as a servant to Jamestown.
No I am not black nor was he

Interesting

Yep

"Not me mum"
312 years later and you still speak in British there laddie?

Go away

And that's the English you barely speak.

Not me mum, oi, piss off y' bloo'y wanker!

You are a very rude perosn

I aim to please.

How

You're kidding, right?

I dont want to talk to you

Then don't.

Done.

How ???.... from a people who don't know who their Daddy is

Yeah cuz they left

Good one

Ok, I'll bite. Before we have this discussion, it's important to point out that I'm not trying to change your mind on whether or not reparations should be made. I'm making the case that the IDEA of reparations is not a stupid one, and is actually worth talking about.

While there is no one living in the US who legally owned slaves, and there is no one living who has been a slave in the US, the repercussions of slavery reverberate today. As a result of a couple hundred years of black people being viewed as less than human, only useful as beasts of burden, the emancipation of the slaves and the abolition of slavery did not end oppression of black people. Racist policies and good old fashioned domestic terrorism effectively curbed the opportunities of black people in the US for more than a century after, making it incredibly difficult for them not only to get ahead themselves, but also to provide stability for their families.

The end result is that black kids were raised in a vicious cycle of poverty, stemming largely from the knowledge (gained through generations of frustration) that there is nothing they can do to make things better. Education exposed them to further knowledge of their plight, without providing any avenues out due to racist hiring policies. The very few who were able to escape this cycle were not raised with the tools necessary to perpetuate their wealth, and often ended up losing it.

While this situation has changed significantly in the past 50 years, and the ability for black people to grow and maintain wealth is increasing, there is still much further to go before they have true equal opportunity. In poorer areas, the only way out is still considered to be as a recording artist or athlete; entrepreneurship requires cash up front, and opportunities for seed money are still highly limited for african americans (very few of whom have rich friends or relatives who are willing to invest).

There is no doubt that there is a disparity of wealth, and that this disparity is directly linked to centuries of slavery followed by a century of outright oppression. It's also clear that the roots of that oppression have not been fully stamped out of our society, and the fear of that oppression is still very present in the black population. As such, black people are still held back, socially and financially. Reparations would be an effort to remedy this.

While I do agree with you about the cycle of poverty (I'm from Detroit) I also see that black kids are growing without a stable father figure and the only figur they have is mom's boyfriend who beats her and blasts gangsta rap in his suv while selling drugs on the side. The family is also on welfare and living in section 8 government housing. And having all white people pay for reparations is on the same level as having Muslims pay for 9/11

wOw

Wow. That's a lot of stereotypes there.

Let's entertain them for a moment, though. All of these situations are indicative of the cycle of poverty that started with slavery; the difficulty of finding legal gainful employment (and subsequent rage that spills into other areas of your life), the shame of being unable to support your family without that employment, and the hopelessness that perpetuates reliance on government assistance rather than looking for work. These are all reasons FOR some form of reparation, not against.

Sometimes I wish they would get off their butts and work but I have ever some of them are working at Walmart trying to make end's meet

There are plenty of white people I wish would get off their butts and work, too :)

People try, more often than not. The point of reparations is not to fix poverty as a whole; it's to remove the system of poverty being determined (either directly or indirectly) by race.

I don't think punishing someone who didn't commit the crime works

And I think that's one of the main misconceptions about reparations, that they are a punishment. If there was a "white tax", that was only levied against white people in order to give payouts to black people, then that's a reasonable assessment. However, any tax that would come up to pay for financial reparations wouldn't be levied against any specific racial or ethnic group. It would just be a tax. And no Congress in the world would approve such a measure anyway, with good reason.

There are other reparation options that are less invasive, such as financial incentives for black-owned startups, higher funding and keen oversight for inner city school systems, and programs to help black families keep their homes during gentrification processes. These are not free, but they're not in any way a punishment.

Those options seem more realistic and effective over time, as well as more reasonable.

No Walmart round here, but a Kmart. Guess what the cashiers and stock clerks look like? Customer service? Why don't the managers look like them? Same with McDonalds, Burger King, JC Penny's, supermarkets, and whatever other chains.

This is in Coop City here where there's a ton of stores, but the pattern is hardly unique.

They seem off their butts (no seated cubicles there) to me.

I know and several are working their buts off. Because they faile and dropped outta high school

What does "they" mean?
Not to be harsh, but look at your own comments. Not exactly tapping the top percentile in school I suspect.

*some black kids

Not to forget that families of slaves were routinely broken up, people sold off individualy. Add to that abuse of the most horrible types and frequency, many slave children sired by slave owners raping the women, any attempts at learning were not allowed and were met with punishment should they dare, then this added to with the resentent over the few who were allowed the slightest degree of education were house servants treated preferentially, etc, etc.

The problem is that these have become so ingrained, culturated, that merely throwing money will do little to rectify present cycles of poverty. As many people who have won lotteries or suits can attest, that money is often soon gone, especially with those not accustomed to utilizing it for the long term because they never previously have enough to do so.

Also what about others negatively impacted by goverment policies of the past? Native Americans? Hawaiians? Samoans? Guam? Filipinos? Puerto Ricans? Mexicans cut off from Mexico after the US took half their territory? British Colonial America was a penal colony, do the descendents of Brits and Irish brought here as prisoners and indentured servants not deserve reparations as well? There are many people in Appalachia and the Southeast who are descended from them and have endured centuries of poverty and disfunction as well themselves.

While there are those whose history and very identity is inescapably wrapped around their ancestors being brought here as slaves and having subsequently suffered immensely as well as still enduring lingering aspects of the indignities heaped upon them, their plight is sadly not the only one. If reparations are about righting a wrong and attempting to offer a means to gain economic & social oppurtunity, then shall reparations be given to so many others whose entance into Amercican society was far from ideal and not of their choosing?

What form those reparations take is a hairy business, to be sure. There are other reparation options aside from just cutting a check.

We dont care and we're not paying lol

I believe that.