[amphibian]

The Ta-Nehisi Coates essay on reparations and the life of black people in the USA has been published online. There may have been bigger news stories, but this one article (the first listed below) is a major step in the public discourse from a person who, as recently as four years ago, had been against the idea of reparations. This is big stuff from someone who has helped open my eyes with words and additions to my reading list and provocations to my thinking.

I would like to know what the thoughts of those who do and don't live in the USA are on this - and this place has the best mix of those willing to read/listen/talk and actually able to have complex discussions. I'm particularly curious about what Stone Monkey thinks because 1) he is a black person living in the UK and 2) he has life experience and thoughts that I can't even begin to approach or do anything other than respect immensely. Seriously, his thoughts on Dredd and the sporadic book/movie/tv show reviews have always been good reads. We also have a couple South Africans and many Australians, which are countries with their own collective struggles with racism, economic inequalities and haphazardly administrated democracies.

http://www.theatlant...arations/361631

http://www.theatlant...autopsy/371125/

http://tressiemc.com...spel-cannot-fix

Fire away.

[Terez]

I have been half-following this because I love to read anything written by Coates; he is an amazing craftsman, of prose and of arguments. There was a protracted debate about reparations on Theoryland several years ago; I can vaguely recall some of the arguments I made, and I think that my views have changed a lot since then. At the time, I think I believed that the best way to make reparations was through public housing and Headstart programs and the like; I've since come to understand the problems inherent in that approach (which is not to say they are bad ideas exactly).


I am a white person from Mississippi so my ideas on this are complex and no doubt encumbered with lingering ignorances. I like the idea of land and business grants, especially in the Deep South (perhaps fixed-amount grants that would simply be worth more in the South where the cost of living is lower). The Great Migration might be the only thing standing in the way of majority minority states in the South (more African-Americans live inside it than outside it), and we could use any kind of economic stimulation down here. Some might think that is crazy talk, but I'm not so sure. The most racist white people in the South are dying; every generation is (in general) a little better. The South has always enjoyed outsize power in the US Congress, whether because of the 3/5 rule, the favoring of low-population states in the Senate, the threats and divisions within the Democratic Party in the 100 years after the Civil War, or gerrymandering. That outsize white southern power is the root of a lot of the lingering insanity on the issue of race, not to mention all sorts of other issues that white southerners get hot about.

[Cause]

I'm pretty sure the average black american is much better off than the average Black African. That does not mean slavery was a good thing and is certainly not to say that slavery was not abhorrent or a reasonable price to pay. Nevertheless I think with any kind of reparations their comes a statue of limitation, a point when the injustice is so far back in time and the possible paths of alternate history too impossible to guess at that the issue needs to be left alone, not forgotten but left alone.

As a Jew I often feel other Jews are too caught up in the holocaust. Never forget it, never forget its lessons and respect the dead but not everything needs to be viewed with a suspicious slant. Sometimes a racist is a racist and sometimes a cigar is a cigar and when the German schools Netball team calls out for the blitzkrieg play I am absolutely confident that they were referring to the word in its direct translation as lightning war and were not intentionally trying to psych out my own schools Jewish netball team by suggesting they love Hitler. The uproar it caused would seem to suggest my viewpoint was in the minority. On the other hand when on an away game the entire opposing school was dressed up as Nazi officers and starving holocaust survivors the 'joke' had gone too far. Yet somehow both incidents were treated the same. The Holocaust was only seventy years ago sure but seventy years is also enough time to mean that Germans don't equal Nazis and for the world change. As a person who feels that my fellow Jews are too absorbed by the holocaust that happened 70 years ago you can imagine my confusion when some Americans get caught up about the slave trade from centuries ago. Admittedly from my South African view point Barrack Obama is 'coloured' and not black but if he can rise to the position of president today surely that is indicative that America is moving in the right direction.

That is another thing I think people ignore. A hundred years of slavery won't be erased in a night, or a week or even a year. Again from my South African point of view, Apartheid was terrible, it has messed Black people up. To deny that is to deny a self evident truth. My country has had 20 years of democracy and people speak about it like that's an achievement. It certainly is I suppose but not in the way they mean it. The effects of Apartheid linger. Making affirmative action favour the 90% blak majority has not given them skills, experience or education they don't possess. It has simply made it a legal requirement to hire them. Similarly making the Pass rate in school 30% has not made the average black child's education equal to mine own, it has made the diploma they earn meaningless. Giving black people in my country land has not made them farmers its turned the land fallow. Short cuts are politically expedient in the short term but accomplish very little in the long term.

I don't meant to suggest that black people are responsible for picking themselves up and working hard and accomplishing everything on their own, rather I simply wish to say that any advantage that is not at least partly earned won't last. Justice is equal opportunity not equal outcomes..

This post has been edited by Cause: 23 May 2014 - 11:35 AM

[amphibian]

The problem with looking at the lingering effects of apartheid and slavery is that there's more than just 300+ years of European colonization and 250+ years of black slavery in North America shaping the present day.

Even after slavery was formally abolished in the US (somewhat unwillingly), there were 90 years of incredibly bad laws that kept black people from being educated, voting, obtaining property or moving freely (Jim Crow laws) and 35+ years of things like housing discrimination through racist mortgage lending, terrible/extortionary contracts and more. The after-effects of slavery didn't stop when the US Civil War ended. They continued long after and still shape today.

I'm sure the same type of things and more are happening or did happen in South Africa after apartheid ended. There has certainly been a lesser backlash of anti-white laws and practices instituted in the spirit of revenge or payback.

So how does a society rectify the purposeful tilting of advantages, hiring practices, education and land distribution to white people to a long term equal opportunity situation or even pro-black situation for a while before going to the equal opportunity situation? I think the growing pains of South Africa are sort of necessary - that mistakes have to be made in order to figure out what does and doesn't work and the South Africans are the ones stumbling so the rest can learn from their example.

I don't have any answers or concrete ideas of how reparations, or more accurately, a national acceptance of wrong-doing and debt repayment by a variety of methods, should be made. But I do think they should be made. Look at Rwanda and how they're mending the internal divisions with their gacaca courts. That gacaca system is mind-boggling to read about as an outsider, much less be participated in by people who've previously murdered each other's tribal/ethnic groups, but it appears to be working. The community-imposed were-gild and the forgiveness appears to be mending the country faster than it otherwise would and I'm of the opinion that the reparations Germany paid post-WWII helped to put things back together in Europe faster than they otherwise would have. So there is something to reparations and acceptance.

[Terez]

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

I'm pretty sure the average black american is much better off than the average Black African.

I personally think that the two situations are very difficult to compare due to vastly different circumstances. It is true that the US and South Africa have somewhat unique parallels among the major nations; we both have a black/white racial divide constructed from a colonial perspective. After that it starts to break down. If you wanted to be really simplistic about it, you could say that SA's problems result from going too fast with legislating equality, and the US's problems result from going too slow. I'm not sure either statement is really correct, though. Another important difference between the US and SA is that black people in SA have majority political power; last I checked, the African-American population is about 12%. It's higher in some places, and even nation-wide they are a powerful bloc of voters (and one of the most politically homogenous groups), but for the most part their outcomes are still determined by white people, who dominate and have always dominated the political process.

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

That does not mean slavery was a good thing and is certainly not to say that slavery was not abhorrent or a reasonable price to pay. Nevertheless I think with any kind of reparations their comes a statue of limitation, a point when the injustice is so far back in time and the possible paths of alternate history too impossible to guess at that the issue needs to be left alone, not forgotten but left alone.

One of the major points of T-NC's article was that the injustice is not so far back in time at all; the injustice is still happening, to a degree that makes it many times more difficult for African-Americans to escape poverty than white Americans. Housing discrimination is the main culprit.

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

Admittedly from my South African view point Barrack Obama is 'coloured' and not black but if he can rise to the position of president today surely that is indicative that America is moving in the right direction.

T-NC also discusses the Obamas in his article. They are an example of how far we have come, but they don't say much (on the surface at least) about how far we have to go. Obama's career before politics was community organizing on the South Side of Chicago, in neighborhoods where housing discrimination has been destroying families for generations. He was very conscious of his privilege, and the fact that it takes a very exceptional person to rise out of those kind of circumstances. We had black doctors and lawyers within a few decades of the Emancipation Proclamation; when they moved out of poor neighborhoods and into white neighborhoods, they saw the neighborhoods empty out and fill up with other black people who were also getting jacked on their sale contracts to the point that they had difficulty keeping up their homes. You might find the relationship between Jewish neighborhoods and black neighborhoods in Chicago interesting; I actually have a book dedicated to that subject, concerning some Jewish families who stayed when their neighborhoods integrated, and some black families who naïvely thought they were doing well for themselves by moving into a good neighborhood.

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

Giving black people in my country land has not made them farmers its turned the land fallow.

If that is the case, then I would guess it's a matter of incompetence on the part of the bureaucrats giving away the land. You don't give prime farming land to just any random black person; you give it to someone who has demonstrated that they can make use of it. That is more a business grant than a land/domicile grant. I doubt all black SAns are incapable of running a successful farm. I have only ever personally known one SAn, a black (or you might say 'coloured') girl named Nolwazi who I worked with for a time at a chain diner. She was probably more educated than I am. I suspect there are a million more like her, if not more...and not just 'coloured' people either.

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

I don't meant to suggest that black people are responsible for picking themselves up and working hard and accomplishing everything on their own, rather I simply wish to say that any advantage that is not at least partly earned won't last. Justice is equal opportunity not equal outcomes.

The problem is that African-Americans have been working for it for centuries now, and over and over again, everything they have is taken away. That has had and continues to have consequences that are still very evident today.

[Studlock]

I think he gets to a very important point in this discussion (continued discussion, in my darker moments I believe this problem (the problem faced by African-Americans, and the similar problems faced by other people who have been and continue to be terrorized, disused and abused by, for a lack of a better term, white people and more specifically the 'normalized' white man) shall never be solved). When ever these questions are brought they are in terms of 'fixing' those who have been used and never about why it's possible. White privileged exists and it is the main beneficiary and reproduction machine for racism. Reparations, for what practical value they might have (which may be many or few), have an even better ideological value, one that not only acknowledges the existence of white privilege in the past (apologizing for the past is so easy Stephen Harper, the robot-man, can do it!) but that is continues to exist.

So basically: things not to actually focus on: How 'broken' the people who have been misused, successful individuals who are statistical outliners (even then Obama has literally been the most contested president in US history), how past reparations have failed while also not acknowledging that said reparations did nothing to change the status quo.

Things to focus on: the continued existence of white privilege and white racism as the overwhelmingly reason these situations exist, having a real conversation about that privilege, which will probably include the talking about reparations, and perhaps (for the innocence white people) coming to terms that you exist in a system that has been built upon horrible acts of violence and oppression and you continue to benefit from those acts. To ignore that last part is to ignore part of for humanity imo.

(sidenote: I am going to define what racism is in a scholarly and useful sense before someone comes in here screaming 'but not all whites are the same, and look at you! You're being reverse-racist'. Racism is prejudice plus power, that is the most simple definition of racism, it's not when you get called honkey, or the white devil, it's when individual prejudices is enforced through power, be that the power of the economic (as is the most common in today's global age), the power of violence on large scale (the recurring amount of police brutality or the USA wars in the Middle East), the power of social dominance as a guise of normality (Hollywood is the best example I can think of), the power of governance (which can still obviously happen even if a marginalized is in power), so on and so forth. It's the failure of the school system that teaches us that racism is a series of individual interactions, so one might simply be super nice to all the black and brown boys and girls and not address the larger and more damaging effects of racism while also feeling like that do not have any responsibility or they benefit from said racism)

[Morgoth]

rac·ism [rey-siz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2.
a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3.
hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.


When that is said, it is the duty of a civilized society to build the institutions necessary to provide equal opportunity of success for all its citizens. As the excellent article Amp linked shows, blacks in the US struggle against ingrained and institutionalized barriers against social and economic success. They may no longer exist as law, but the echo of those laws still have an enormous effect. Reparations to my mind should be the investment in programs and infrastructure necessary to combat this effect.

However, to some extent I am not too fond of the word reparations in this context. It is the duty of society to provide the above independent of the evil committed in the past.

[Studlock]

I'm just going to say the dictionary definition is not particularly useful in the context of the argument as dictionaries are inherently descriptive rather than prescriptive thus a white persons experience with 'racism' for example a black persons calling them a honkey, or maybe even an assault, both terrible acts, but not quantitative to the larger white experience is in same definition as a POC living with racism as a simply fact of life, not something that interrupts it...so you might be able to see how accepting the dictionary definition as the definition is problematic as it equates a single bad experience to and entire lifetime of bad experiences but I will from this point on not argue about the definition and usage of racism as I remember last time.

As to your points I mostly agree, while pointing out that without the acknowledgement of the past, and thus looking at the ghost it that still haunts the present, equality is near unachievable. I am not sure if Norway has had any experience as the people of colonized states but simply making everyone equal in the law hasn't solved the problem, nor has programs that promote and protect, in my instance, First Nations (or African-Americans of the article case). The true problem lies in existence of the white privilege (or as the article calls it white supremacy), without challenging that privilege is simply putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. Reparations would be inherently tied to the past as that's where the current power structure was created, for me reparations would serve a largely symbolic purpose showing a wider willingness to both acknowledge past sin while also address the injustice that exists today because of said past sins. When that is address we could truly make a safety net without huge wholes in it for the entirety of the citizenship.

[Terez]

My impression was that he was suggesting we need not go so far back in our history as slavery to determine what sort of reparations are appropriate. Giving people money etc. based on what their great-great-great-grandparents suffered is bound to cause unnecessary negative discourse and possibly also undue social turmoil. One can assign reparations based on the current situation rather than the past and have essentially the same result, so why kick that particular hive?

[Tsundoku]

Terez, on 24 May 2014 - 07:34 AM, said:

My impression was that he was suggesting we need not go so far back in our history as slavery to determine what sort of reparations are appropriate. Giving people money etc. based on what their great-great-great-grandparents suffered is bound to cause unnecessary negative discourse and possibly also undue social turmoil. One can assign reparations based on the current situation rather than the past and have essentially the same result, so why kick that particular hive?

Agreed. All discriminatory references should be removed from law. A citizen should only be able to access benefits, or gain advantage from Government assistance by being a disadvantaged CITIZEN, not because they are a member of some demographic based on genetics, religion, political persuasion or lifestyle choice.

I mean, if you want to go down the reparations path, surely I'm owed something by those bastard English who dispossessed my ancestors of their land in Ireland about 400 years ago? And that's just one branch of my family. I'm sure most of us could make similar claims. Somebody wrote earlier in the thread something to the effect of "once you start, where do you stop?" and I agree.

[Terez]

I wouldn't go quite so far. Just because slavery is well in the past doesn't mean that its legacy doesn't have continuing effects. As T-NC says in his article, black poverty is demonstrably different from white poverty, for a number of reasons. Housing discrimination still happens today. The benefits of white privilege continue to accrue.

[Studlock]

I am not arguing for reparations on past sin I'm arguing that for any meaningful change to occur one must acknowledge past sins because those sins are firmly rooted in the problems of today. In Canada the argument pretty much always boil down to 'the past is past, I didn't take your land, that is now coincidentally my land, I didn't send you residential school, I didn't demolish Africaville, I didn't detain you during WW2, I, I, I.....'

Denying ones benefit from their forefathers sins cleanses them from any responsibility to fix the problem that emerged from those sins. Without doing so is like trying to a build a new house on a old rotten foundation. To make a safe house you got to dig that fucker out and lay something new down.


EDIT: typos ain't a thang

This post has been edited by Studlock: 24 May 2014 - 08:56 AM

[Tsundoku]

Again, agreed. Hence my first paragraph. Then you won't have the black poor, or the white poor, or even the indigenous poor (is there such a thing as the gay poor? Hmmm ...). You'll just have the poor (which is bad enough by itself), who will all have equal access to any form of assistance. Anyone seeking advantage or to discriminate against, on the basis of any demographic then comes up against anti-discrimination laws. Hopefully by this time they have some teeth and ability to follow through.

At this point I'm in 2 minds on the matter. One side hopes all forms of discrimination will be met with an even, impartial hand. For example there is an equal reaction to someone calling me a "honkey" (seriously, wtf is that?) as if I called someone the n-word. Actually, a curious point; I can write honkey but I'll bet if I wrote the other word I'd make people uncomfortable. Huh, funny that. That's an example right there.

The other side wishes everyone would just HTFU and realise words (for starters) only have power over you if you give them power over you. Let's go the whole hog on free speech and say that everything is fair game as long as it's not libel/slander/defamation or inciting crime. It would certainly get a lot of people's honest opinions out in the open rather than suppress the open discussion of them. I'm sure (with absolutely no backup here, it's just a feeling) that a lot of people's "-ist" feelings and thoughts are perpetuated and perhaps even amplified under the current nanny state of most of the western world, whereas a more ah, robust discussion would make people's positions clearer, we'd have a lot more honesty and perhaps a greater chance of effecting change to people's views. But like I said that's just a feeling, it has no basis in fact or statistics.

EDIT: I guess what I'm getting at is you have to make things perfectly egalitarian and transparent, else you just end up creating fuel for another generation of discontent.

EDIT2 : some interesting pieces in that Atlantic, had to bookmark it.

This post has been edited by Sombra: 24 May 2014 - 09:38 AM

[Terez]

Sombra, on 24 May 2014 - 09:27 AM, said:

Again, agreed. Hence my first paragraph. Then you won't have the black poor, or the white poor, or even the indigenous poor (is there such a thing as the gay poor? Hmmm ...). You'll just have the poor (which is bad enough by itself), who will all have equal access to any form of assistance.

Only in a perfect world. If discrimination is possible, then discrimination will happen, usually on every level of the bureaucracy that manages said benefits. Those at the top engineer the rules to allow for discrimination; rubber-stampers take advantage of the loopholes accordingly. I'm not saying it's the same in Oz or anywhere else for that matter; I'm just saying that's how it goes in the US, and the racial wealth gap tells the story.

Sombra, on 24 May 2014 - 09:27 AM, said:

Anyone seeking advantage or to discriminate against, on the basis of any demographic then comes up against anti-discrimination laws. Hopefully by this time they have some teeth and ability to follow through.

Not yet, not by a long shot. Discrimination is incredibly difficult to prove, and those who would do it are continually finding ways to do it within the letter of the law. Our justice system is designed to perpetuate race slavery and wealth plunder.

Sombra, on 24 May 2014 - 09:27 AM, said:

Let's go the whole hog on free speech and say that everything is fair game as long as it's not libel/slander/defamation or inciting crime. It would certainly get a lot of people's honest opinions out in the open rather than suppress the open discussion of them. I'm sure (with absolutely no backup here, it's just a feeling) that a lot of people's "-ist" feelings and thoughts are perpetuated and perhaps even amplified under the current nanny state of most of the western world, whereas a more ah, robust discussion would make people's positions clearer, we'd have a lot more honesty and perhaps a greater chance of effecting change to people's views. But like I said that's just a feeling, it has no basis in fact or statistics.

I think we have a relatively robust discussion on these things in the US; yes, people try to hide their racism but it still happens out in the open all the time, and it's amazing for example when my grandmother wanders off into naïvely yet terribly racist rants about this and that and then purports to be fair-minded on the subject without missing a beat or showing the slightest sign that she recognizes her self-contradictions. I am quite sure that I do that myself to a much lesser degree; being ignorant is a lot easier than being racist. As I said a while back, there is a generational progression in the Deep South, where people still fly the Confederate battle flag and talk about how the South will rise again. I hope the South will rise again, too, but I don't believe it will happen until we reach majority minority (not far away for some states, mine first among them), and then only if white southerners in general are able to get over it.

[tiam]

Ive just spent some time reading those articles and as a UK citizen I have no sort of opinion on reparations at all. I finished reading them with more questions than answers.

What is the basis for these reparations?
Is it individual circumstances of black people being stripped of their property in recent history or a more widespread reparation based on other factors?
Where does this end if it is based on race/geography/family relations rather than individual circumstance?

This is an interesting point especially as we have nothing like this in the UK, as far as I know. Alot of our racial discussions centre around immigration and the rights of immigrant workers.

This post has been edited by NoOneExpectsThetiamishInquisition: 25 May 2014 - 07:34 PM

[Cause]

Quote

Terez, on 23 May 2014 - 08:57 PM, said:

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

I'm pretty sure the average black american is much better off than the average Black African.

I personally think that the two situations are very difficult to compare due to vastly different circumstances. It is true that the US and South Africa have somewhat unique parallels among the major nations; we both have a black/white racial divide constructed from a colonial perspective. After that it starts to break down. If you wanted to be really simplistic about it, you could say that SA's problems result from going too fast with legislating equality, and the US's problems result from going too slow. I'm not sure either statement is really correct, though. Another important difference between the US and SA is that black people in SA have majority political power; last I checked, the African-American population is about 12%. It's higher in some places, and even nation-wide they are a powerful bloc of voters (and one of the most politically homogenous groups), but for the most part their outcomes are still determined by white people, who dominate and have always dominated the political process.

All I meant by this comment was that Slavery was horrible for the current Americans ancestors, for themselves it was actually a pretty good deal. Insensitive to say it maybe but I am sure that for the current generation of African Americans living in America is better than living in CAR or the Ivory Coast. Even factoring in the current disadvantages they may or may not face. Do we therefore judge their need for reperations against theit white american peers or their African peers whose lifestyle they would share if not for slavery. If we factor in the disadvantages we must also I think factor in the advantages.

Quote

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

That does not mean slavery was a good thing and is certainly not to say that slavery was not abhorrent or a reasonable price to pay. Nevertheless I think with any kind of reparations their comes a statue of limitation, a point when the injustice is so far back in time and the possible paths of alternate history too impossible to guess at that the issue needs to be left alone, not forgotten but left alone.

One of the major points of T-NC's article was that the injustice is not so far back in time at all; the injustice is still happening, to a degree that makes it many times more difficult for African-Americans to escape poverty than white Americans. Housing discrimination is the main culprit.

I don't feel I understand the situation fully enough to comment further

Quote

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

Giving black people in my country land has not made them farmers its turned the land fallow.

If that is the case, then I would guess it's a matter of incompetence on the part of the bureaucrats giving away the land. You don't give prime farming land to just any random black person; you give it to someone who has demonstrated that they can make use of it. That is more a business grant than a land/domicile grant. I doubt all black SAns are incapable of running a successful farm. I have only ever personally known one SAn, a black (or you might say 'coloured') girl named Nolwazi who I worked with for a time at a chain diner. She was probably more educated than I am. I suspect there are a million more like her, if not more...and not just 'coloured' people either.

This is the trap of reparations.The people who were displaced deserve their land back. Irrespective of whether they can maintain it, manage it or benefit from it. I am not suffering but if I was offered free wealth I would take it, and the poor are no different. This is as I have said the double edged sword of reparations. Land does make a person a farmer, a once off payment no matter how large won't make the financially illiterate wealthy, Affirmative action does not give people skills they don't have, and allowing people to pass with lower grades does the very opposite of making them smarter. This is why I describe reparations are more politically expediant than useful. They buy votes, they buy support and they do very little to make blacks and whites truly equally. That would require improving education infrastructure, job training programs and legislature that fights rather than actively promotes racial discrimination. That and fifty years of time and hard work by government and the people. No wonder we choose the easy but pointless path.

I also wish to clarify that there are 40 million black people in my country. Of course some are competent and smart. There are 50 million people in my country of course some are competent and smart. The colour of their skin hardly makes a difference. What matters is that when you are being taught science by a teacher who could not herself pass the tests she is required to invigilate and a 30% mark is considered a pass you are unlikely to then amount to much. I have taught students at university who doing science in their second or third years have told me they can't square the number 3, calculate the volume of a cube or believe that 50 kg of feathers is the same weight as 50 kg of rocks. Its not black children's fault, it's the system they rely on to teach them. What boggles my mind though is that we spend more time debating affirmative action, the size of welfare grants and free housing, the banning of university entrance exams than we do about fixing this obviously flawed system whch continues to churn out black children who are no better off than the pre apartheid counterparts.

I also wish to clarify that I never meant to suggest Obama is so successful because he is half white, I simply meant that apartheid made racial classification an art form and Whites, Blacks and coloureds all think of themselves and are treated as distinct people. Black people in my county would not think of a coloured person as being black. Things seem to be different in america is all that I meant.

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

I don't meant to suggest that black people are responsible for picking themselves up and working hard and accomplishing everything on their own, rather I simply wish to say that any advantage that is not at least partly earned won't last. Justice is equal opportunity not equal outcomes.

The problem is that African-Americans have been working for it for centuries now, and over and over again, everything they have is taken away. That has had and continues to have consequences that are still very evident today.

[Terez]

Cause, on 26 May 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

Terez, on 23 May 2014 - 08:57 PM, said:

Cause, on 23 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

I'm pretty sure the average black american is much better off than the average Black African.

I personally think that the two situations are very difficult to compare due to vastly different circumstances. It is true that the US and South Africa have somewhat unique parallels among the major nations; we both have a black/white racial divide constructed from a colonial perspective. After that it starts to break down...

All I meant by this comment was that Slavery was horrible for the current Americans ancestors, for themselves it was actually a pretty good deal. Insensitive to say it maybe but I am sure that for the current generation of African Americans living in America is better than living in CAR or the Ivory Coast. Even factoring in the current disadvantages they may or may not face. Do we therefore judge their need for reperations against theit white american peers or their African peers whose lifestyle they would share if not for slavery. If we factor in the disadvantages we must also I think factor in the advantages.

I'm not sure how it is in SA, but in the US this argument is very old and very tired, to the point that I was almost compelled to give up on this thread. But I should address at least this point. If not for slavery, then white Americans would not enjoy the lifestyle they have today. This country was built not only on the labor of African slaves, but also on their ingenuity. What did early American settlers have to offer them, other than superior weapons? Who are we to argue that their way of life in Africa was somehow less desirable than freedom and simple human respect from their peers, or that the most undesirable part of living in Africa at the time wasn't colonialism? And if African-Americans' expectations have changed since they were transplanted, are we not responsible for that too? The racial wealth gap in the US is built on plunder, and I would hesitate to justify it with vague logic.

[amphibian]

Sombra, on 24 May 2014 - 09:27 AM, said:

At this point I'm in 2 minds on the matter. One side hopes all forms of discrimination will be met with an even, impartial hand. For example there is an equal reaction to someone calling me a "honkey" (seriously, wtf is that?) as if I called someone the n-word. Actually, a curious point; I can write honkey but I'll bet if I wrote the other word I'd make people uncomfortable. Huh, funny that. That's an example right there.

The other side wishes everyone would just HTFU and realise words (for starters) only have power over you if you give them power over you. Let's go the whole hog on free speech and say that everything is fair game as long as it's not libel/slander/defamation or inciting crime. It would certainly get a lot of people's honest opinions out in the open rather than suppress the open discussion of them. I'm sure (with absolutely no backup here, it's just a feeling) that a lot of people's "-ist" feelings and thoughts are perpetuated and perhaps even amplified under the current nanny state of most of the western world, whereas a more ah, robust discussion would make people's positions clearer, we'd have a lot more honesty and perhaps a greater chance of effecting change to people's views. But like I said that's just a feeling, it has no basis in fact or statistics.

The word "honkey" does not have centuries of enslavement, purposeful verbal continuation of subjugation and imposed otherness bound up within it. The two words and concepts are not the same and calling someone a "honkey" probably never will be the same as calling someone a "nigger".

Words have power far beyond the intent of the speaker and the reception of those spoken to. They resonate, they echo, they call into thought and into being varied and complicated concepts that can uplift, wound or deaden others.

I don't say either word in casual conversation (and have chosen dropped many other words like "lynch", "bitch" and others, but I do recognize that the word/concept of nigger is far, far worse and its usage should make people uncomfortable in a way that honkey doesn't. I think it is okay to say them in serious conversation, when fully aware and respectful of their metaphysical impact, but in general, they should not be said and the concepts behind them are not good ones for humans to use towards each other.

As far as discussion goes, I can see what you mean by wanting a more honest discussion than ones spattered with "dog whistle" words and avoidance/denial of the issues entirely. However, I think calling people out on these things (always without threat of physical harm) is the right thing to do. I feel that I have a duty to tell people around me that saying this (racist/sexist/wrong thing) or doing that (racist/sexist/wrong thing) are not acceptable things to do. I have no control over a person's thoughts or feelings, but I can tell people that I don't want particular thoughts or actions expressed near me or in a group and/or society that I'm part of. The concepts of black slavery and subjugation by law and by informal means are embedded into American society and history (the same concepts or others like them are embedded elsewhere as well and people all over the world deal with them daily). Addressing them has been a haphazard (and not superbly handled when handled) process. I don't think there's a good return on honest discussion with out and out racists. Most people will have a very hard time accepting or even refuse to accept the subtle racism in the system at large and that done by collective action or continued momentum of the system at large. Look at how hard it is to tell white men the concepts of misogyny and so on.

tiam, on 25 May 2014 - 07:33 PM, said:

Ive just spent some time reading those articles and as a UK citizen I have no sort of opinion on reparations at all. I finished reading them with more questions than answers.

What is the basis for these reparations?
Is it individual circumstances of black people being stripped of their property in recent history or a more widespread reparation based on other factors?
Where does this end if it is based on race/geography/family relations rather than individual circumstance?

This is an interesting point especially as we have nothing like this in the UK, as far as I know. Alot of our racial discussions centre around immigration and the rights of immigrant workers.

Was there discussion of reparations/changes after British colonialism came to a formal end? Did the British interference in India/Pakistan, Palestine/Israel, the American/Canadian colonies and many other places not invite discussion of reparations or recompense? Northern Ireland? Scottish independence? The Welsh sheepmen? What happened with the the war over the Falkland Islands?

Cause, on 26 May 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

This is the trap of reparations.The people who were displaced deserve their land back. Irrespective of whether they can maintain it, manage it or benefit from it. I am not suffering but if I was offered free wealth I would take it, and the poor are no different. This is as I have said the double edged sword of reparations. Land does make a person a farmer, a once off payment no matter how large won't make the financially illiterate wealthy, Affirmative action does not give people skills they don't have, and allowing people to pass with lower grades does the very opposite of making them smarter. This is why I describe reparations are more politically expediant than useful. They buy votes, they buy support and they do very little to make blacks and whites truly equally. That would require improving education infrastructure, job training programs and legislature that fights rather than actively promotes racial discrimination. That and fifty years of time and hard work by government and the people. No wonder we choose the easy but pointless path.

I also wish to clarify that there are 40 million black people in my country. Of course some are competent and smart. There are 50 million people in my country of course some are competent and smart. The colour of their skin hardly makes a difference. What matters is that when you are being taught science by a teacher who could not herself pass the tests she is required to invigilate and a 30% mark is considered a pass you are unlikely to then amount to much. I have taught students at university who doing science in their second or third years have told me they can't square the number 3, calculate the volume of a cube or believe that 50 kg of feathers is the same weight as 50 kg of rocks. Its not black children's fault, it's the system they rely on to teach them. What boggles my mind though is that we spend more time debating affirmative action, the size of welfare grants and free housing, the banning of university entrance exams than we do about fixing this obviously flawed system whch continues to churn out black children who are no better off than the pre apartheid counterparts.

This is some of the roughest/rawest stuff being said here.

You raise the absolutely valid point of what form reparations should take - when land-based reparations have led to the effects they did in South Africa, when the gacaca court-based reparations in Rwanda have led to a fitful peace with very little weregild or land changing hands and others. This is an enormous issue and one that requires a view at least a half a century down the line and with many moving targets of policy implementation and political expediency involved.

The South African example seems like its main issues are based heavily in public education - which has failed the public. Fixing that is a very big and complicated set of issues by itself, but they can be addressed and perhaps the South African way is but growing pains encountered in addressing that. I don't know - I'm just hoping.

Perhaps a more educated person can speak on this. That's why I've left off responding for so long, just trying to get the floor to stay open to those who want to talk and those who know more than I do in their own milieux.

Thank you for talking, all of you. It may not mean something more than a nebulous, hazy topic gets talked about, but at least we're looking at it and thinking about it.

[Cause]

I thought I would post this article, written by a black man in my country about a proposed Land redistribution scheme in my country (All farms will have their ownership split in two and half the farms value will be divided amongst the workers who work on it). The scheme is unconstitutional and will probably never become a reality but his thoughts on the matter are nevertheless I think quite interesting. Especially as I think he and I agree and both point out how in the long run this short-sighted schemes hurt the very people they are supposedly meant to help.

http://www.sabreakin...t-land-thieves/

Anyway things to consider:
-Even if we accept the premiss that white farmers stole the land they work on, does stealing it back right a social injustice or create a new one.
-Who would decide how to manage the farm, the white farmer who owns 50% and has experience or the black-co-operative or would tens to thousands of people have to make the decision as a committee?
-Farmers have over decades or even centuries been cultivating, improving and investing resources into there farms, does this count for anything?
Just because your a farm worker today does not mean you have any connection to the land you work, What about people who were once indigenous to the area but are now maids, miners or even Doctors? Are we righting an injustice or just trying to take wealth from white people and give it to black people?
-Who owns the land? the black people the whites stole it from? The black people other black people stole it from before the white people stole it from them?

[Tsundoku]

Cause, on 04 July 2014 - 12:05 PM, said:

I thought I would post this article, written by a black man in my country about a proposed Land redistribution scheme in my country (All farms will have their ownership split in two and half the farms value will be divided amongst the workers who work on it). The scheme is unconstitutional and will probably never become a reality but his thoughts on the matter are nevertheless I think quite interesting. Especially as I think he and I agree and both point out how in the long run this short-sighted schemes hurt the very people they are supposedly meant to help.

http://www.sabreakin...t-land-thieves/

Anyway things to consider:
-Even if we accept the premiss that white farmers stole the land they work on, does stealing it back right a social injustice or create a new one.
-Who would decide how to manage the farm, the white farmer who owns 50% and has experience or the black-co-operative or would tens to thousands of people have to make the decision as a committee?
-Farmers have over decades or even centuries been cultivating, improving and investing resources into there farms, does this count for anything?
Just because your a farm worker today does not mean you have any connection to the land you work, What about people who were once indigenous to the area but are now maids, miners or even Doctors? Are we righting an injustice or just trying to take wealth from white people and give it to black people?
-Who owns the land? the black people the whites stole it from? The black people other black people stole it from before the white people stole it from them?

Any time some idiot broaches this subject again, just point toward Zimbabwe and shake your head.

I must refrain from commenting on your last point because my case is currently before the Irish High Court. If that goes well I'll be suing the shit out of whomever owns the Caucasus mountains these days.

This post has been edited by Sombra: 04 July 2014 - 05:51 PM