Posted on 06/04/2015 11:01:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The questions around reparations to descendants of slaves in America often trigger strident conversations. These discussions lay bare how race continues to affect the nation - despite the unfounded protestations by Americans that race holds little relevance to their lives. The "coded racial appeals" that Ian Haney Lopez has written in his informative book, "Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism & Wrecked The Middle Class," is must reading for all Americans and provides a foundation for how racism endures and evolves.
In this week's guest blog, Michael Holzman provides additional thought suggesting the moral debt America owes to African Americans. Some may read his piece and dismiss the argument as absurd. Many thoughtful pieces have been written on the topic. One salient essay was written by Ta-Nehisi Coates of "The Atlantic" for their 2014 cover story.
I concur that a discussion of reparations would open the nation to a deeper understanding of the vestiges of racism, which affect our institutions and for that matter the soul of America. It has been said that beauty is born of suffering and wisdom is the child of grief. The wisdom of our shared American culture emerges from the common struggles of the past, present and future.
The beauty of the nation lies in the diverse fabrics which when woven carefully create a splendid mosaic of cultures, races and beliefs. This mosaic can only be strengthened by a deeper understanding of how yesterday and today's structural racism hinder progress for us all tomorrow....
(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.com ...
How would forcing black folks to pay reparations for all the damage they’ve done close the wealth gap.
http://m.youtube.com/index?client=mv-verizon-us&desktop_uri=%2F%3Fclient%3Dmv-verizon-us
Reparations huh?
Actually it is extortion payments by a generation of white guilt ridden liberals for something they had absolutely no involvement in.
On the other side of the coin the potential recipients drool at the thought of even more FREE MONEY to add to their welfare income.
However, the mention of the word is a tool to drive black voters to the democrat polls like stink on poop.
They don't care about fairness or accuracy. The redistributees want free stuff and the redistributors want the redistributeds to get more accustomed to socialism. Eventually, they expect that the concept of rights will be lost except for a few spontaneous mutations who will affect nothing.
Only about 400,000 Africans were brought to the United States as slaves. There are now 40,000,000 million Africans in the United States. The United States has actually been very good for Africans.
Reparations demands tend to concentrate on the wrongs done to the 400,000 African slaves. The omit the harm done by today’s Africans to Whites: 95 White women raped by a Black man *every day*; 875 Whites suffering violence at the hands of a black *every day*; half of all violent crime by the African 13 percent. It also excludes the massive benefits in the form of welfare, housing, and education that allowed the 400,000 to grow to 40 million.
No reparations will ‘close gaps’ for any length of time: for example Africans in America were essentially bequeathed a civilisation in the form of Detroit; look how long that lasted. Even in Africa when Whites lose (or surrender) control, African norms soon prevail (e.g., Zimbabwe, South Africa). Indeed anywhere that has large numbers of Africans soon reverts to African norms (Ferguson, Baltimore, New Orleans). No amount of reparations will fix that.
While I think one million dollars is far too much (remember 40 million potential recipients), I do agree that the mantra should be: No reparations without complete separation.
My indifference on this subject is only exceeded by my apathy..
They must have had to truncate the title.
They left off
“for about 2 years”
Not to nit-pick you and I say this as a bi-ethnic person but what the hell is an African, there is a big difference between guys that live in Egypt, Somalia or South Africa, forgive me it just sounds a bit stupid for its the name of a continent, no offense.
P.S. I think the whole reparations thing is a joke, I work my butt of in the IT field everyday and learn new things and they can do the same, and I am glad was born here instead of that continent or the middle east or eastern europe.
I guess you read the answer on the thread, by now.
Reparations would enrich the liquor stores, lottery ticket sales, nail salons, cruise lines, sports venues and Lexus dealers. Within a year or two, it would be gone.
Most of that is complete nonsense.
The TRILLIONS in reparations (welfare) paid out, over the past DECADES, have not helped. A reformed morality and work ethic is what would help.
Thanks for posting that history refresher...that so many libs overlook!
True, as far as it goes. But here's what liberals/progressives leave out: Woven together into a single fabric, a unitary tapestry, based on the American idea of ordered liberty and opportunity.
Never will I agree to payments to this sullen, hateful, and violent demographic who has already stolen 22 TRILLION dollars of America’s wealth.
However, I WILL start a fund to buy swim trunks for them. You know, for the trip back.
Definitely; they conceded that when complaining about the unfair advantage for children that have parents read books to them. A friend that had been a teacher in an urban district described young “students” who didn’t know the word “book”; they had literally never seen them in their homes.
Black co-workers in their late 50s/early 60s describe the difficulties their grown children have getting worthwhile jobs; they don’t realize that when their children were given high school diplomas and college degrees just for showing up, they actually hadn’t learned anything. Many of these women never went to college, yet are more educated than their college-educated children (due to the collapse of education in the ensuing decades); this applies to math, English, history - just about everything except technology. For all the talk about a “digital divide”, young blacks seem to have all the latest technology and no problem organizing “flash-robs”...
I used to live nearby, as a kid—Wilmer, about 7 mi N on US-75.
As a broad racial categorization ‘African’ is as good as ‘European’ (or White). Europe is a continent but it is meaningful to talk of Europeans apart from the individual nations they might belong to; so it is with Africa.
In this case, ‘African’ would be what was once called (the term falling into disuse/disrepute) Negroid or Congoid.
The term ‘Black’ could have done but I prefer to avoid that as it makes it seem that race is just skin color when it is much more than that.
For descendants of slaves held in the United States it would be mostly West-African.
Well sir, when I attended Boot Camp our DS never called us by some origin but as Americans, and as a Federal Contractor I worked around a good deal of Marines, and either they were called Marines or Americans again never by some ethnic identity.
I am American of mixed blood, I was born Virginia and it is where I will die and my time comes, my family has been here for many generations, and have served in my military since WWII with my dad serving on nuke subs and carriers making Chief before he retired and is very educated making a 6 figure income, and nobody in my family calls themselves European, or African, cause that is not who we are, and we like to work hard and live the American Dream.
- Just my own two cents.
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