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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 3:38 pm Post subject: |
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More on the push for reparations.
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The reaction to Ta-Nehisi Coates' magisterial essay on the lingering effects of American racism is polarized around people's reaction to the word "reparations." But much of the story he tells is about something simpler, and completely uncontroversial: the power of compound interest.
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What Coates shows is that white America has, for hundreds of years, used deadly force, racist laws, biased courts and housing segregation to wrest the power of compound interest for itself. The word he keeps coming back to is "plunder." White America built its wealth by stealing the work of African-Americans and then, when that became illegal, it added to its wealth by plundering from the work and young assets of African-Americans. And then, crucially, it let compound interest work its magic.
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Though the sums are gargantuan — using standard government calculations, the theft from slavery alone stretches into the quadrillions of dollars — it's relatively easy for people to think in terms of the compound interest that's accrued to the income stolen from African Americans. But the power of compound interest doesn't just apply to money. It also applies to education and families and neighborhoods and self-respect. And this is where Coates' piece is so devastating. America didn't just plunder what African-Americans earned, or what they had saved. By far the hardest part of the piece to read was this account of what slavery did to black families:
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"The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter," Coates writes. It's also the intellectually unserious response of people who believe that because they never owned slaves or drank from a whites-only water fountain they weren't the beneficiaries of American racism. They may not be the villains of American racism, but they are the beneficiaries of it. The average white southerner in 1832 was far poorer than the average white southerner today, and part of that vast increase in wealth and income and knowledge and social networks is the result of compound interest working its magic on what the slaveowners and the segregationists stole.
It's as simple and clear as a child's math problem. The people who benefitted most from American racism weren't the white men who stole the penny. It's the people who held onto the penny while it doubled and doubled and doubled and doubled. |
First I won't deny that he has a point regarding the very real harm done to Black families when tearing them apart, and I'll even go further and say our society continues to tear Black families apart with poorly administered criminal justice. That's not, however, something that can be resolved by dumping money on it; one cannot fix broken families with "reparations." But as to the main point, the matter of "compounding interest," this is almost bizarrely wrong. One need only look at the reality of the world to see that "quadrillions of dollars" were not stolen from Blacks by slavery, simply because under market conditions at the time, the pay they would have received for the kind of work they did as slaves would have been little more than the room and board they received as slaves. I'm not saying that's a fine or good thing, but it's a realistic thing: elite land owners do not pay menial laborers well.
There were no doubt some fair examples of actual theft (seizure of Black-owned land) that could be said to have lingering consequences, but they affected specific individuals rather than Blacks collectively, and occurred to a far lesser degree than the frankly lazy "throw everything conceivable on the wall and hope it all sticks" approach. Perhaps more importantly, the suggestion that America's Whites collectively -- rather than certain select demographics -- "got rich" by stealing from Blacks is outright ridiculous. I understand why he has to insist otherwise (after all, the case for reparations can only be made if you can create a kind of "blood guilt" which spans all Whites which have ever set foot on American soil), but it's no more the correct for it. My own ancestors came to America only a few generations ago, settling in lily-White Wisconsin, and largely building lives for themselves. Watching some identity-politics *beep* try to take the limited successes of my grandparents and attribute them to Black slaves exasperating.
If an atypical number of Blacks are afflicted by poverty, then generous and effectively-crafted anti-poverty programs will be atypically beneficial to Blacks. That's reasonable, I can accept it and even approve of it. But to suggest that modern "White Americans" owe modern "Black Americans" some sort of collective debt? Completely unreasonable. Yes, Blacks are generally among America's most unfortunate from a historic perspective, but it's a matter of degree, not of kind. Blacks are not the only ones who have had their property seized, Blacks are not the only ones who have been forced to labor, Blacks are not the only ones who have been taken advantage of by the economic elite. There's plenty of horrible things in American history. The answer isn't blood guilt, it's to implement policy to minimize the lingering effects of such historic problems, not just for Blacks, but for all who are stuck in poverty. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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This article looks at a study in which four words with negative connotation are considered from the perspective of gender. Evidently men are called "condescending," substantially more often than women, while women are called "pushy" substantially more often than men. Of course, that means the title of the article becomes "'Pushy' Is Used to Describe Women Twice as Often as Men," and the article explains why it's more or less okay for men to be called condescending while it's completely different and much worse to call women pushy.
The lesson we take away from this: next time you want to fire a disruptive female employee, you should say it's because they're "condescending" instead of "pushy." Only then will we all be equal. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
If an atypical number of Blacks are afflicted by poverty, then generous and effectively-crafted anti-poverty programs will be atypically beneficial to Blacks. That's reasonable, I can accept it and even approve of it. But to suggest that modern "White Americans" owe modern "Black Americans" some sort of collective debt? Completely unreasonable. Yes, Blacks are generally among America's most unfortunate from a historic perspective, but it's a matter of degree, not of kind. Blacks are not the only ones who have had their property seized, Blacks are not the only ones who have been forced to labor, Blacks are not the only ones who have been taken advantage of by the economic elite. There's plenty of horrible things in American history. The answer isn't blood guilt, it's to implement policy to minimize the lingering effects of such historic problems, not just for Blacks, but for all who are stuck in poverty. |
TNC replies to these kinds of objections. Particularly, he responds to the idea that blacks should not be compensated because there's plenty of horrible things in American history.
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In this country, at this moment, "African-Americans" are an ethnic group comprised of individuals of varying degrees of direct African ancestry. Nothing about this fact necessitated plunder or injury, and it is the injury—through red-lining, black codes, slaves codes, lynching, ghettoization, fraud, rape, and murder—with which reparations concerns itself. The point is not "racial apportionment," which is to say giving people things because they are black. It is injury apportionment, which is to say restoring things to people who have been plundered.
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Williamson believes that reparations must either boil down to a "symbolic political process" or a series of polices that helps America's poor and disproportionately aids African-Americans. How, Williamson asks, can one make a claim on behalf of Sasha and Malia Obama, in a world of poor whites? In much the same way that a factory which pumps toxins into a poor neighborhood is not indemnified because a plaintiff rises to become a millionaire. Taking Williamson's argument to its logical conclusion, a businessman brutalized by the police should never sue the city because, well, homelessness. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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Reparations are a great idea.
I agree with The Atlantic! A first for everything. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
Reparations are a great idea.
I agree with The Atlantic! A first for everything. |
It could be quite workable, and it certainly makes more sense than creating money in the GSEs.
http://www.vox.com/2014/5/23/5741294/slavery-reparations-are-workable-and-affordable
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Right now the Federal Reserve is engaging in $45 billion per month of quantitative easing, printing money and using the proceeds to buy US government debt and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds. Before May, they were doing $55 billion per month.
At the $55 billion per month pace, it would take 25 months — just over two years — to transfer the full $1.38 trillion to black America. Any potentially inflationary impact of the money-printing could be offset by halting quantitative easing immediately. If that's not enough to fully offset the impact, that would actually be good news since as Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Narayan Kockerlakota observed earlier this week the Fed is currently generating less inflation and less job growth than it says it wants. If at some point during the two year span inflation did become undesirably high, the Fed could offset that by increasing the interest rate it pays on excess bank reserves or through conventional monetary means. |
Its several payments and done. Once reparations are over, no more affirmative action, no more racially slanted policies, and perhaps you would even see a wider recognition of the past wrongs. Maybe we could begin dismantling some provisions of the Civil Rights Act, if that is what it would take to institute reparations. As far as economic policies go, I have seen worse. And TNC has sold this as a justice and moral policy (which it primarily is). |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
If an atypical number of Blacks are afflicted by poverty, then generous and effectively-crafted anti-poverty programs will be atypically beneficial to Blacks. That's reasonable, I can accept it and even approve of it. But to suggest that modern "White Americans" owe modern "Black Americans" some sort of collective debt? Completely unreasonable. Yes, Blacks are generally among America's most unfortunate from a historic perspective, but it's a matter of degree, not of kind. Blacks are not the only ones who have had their property seized, Blacks are not the only ones who have been forced to labor, Blacks are not the only ones who have been taken advantage of by the economic elite. There's plenty of horrible things in American history. The answer isn't blood guilt, it's to implement policy to minimize the lingering effects of such historic problems, not just for Blacks, but for all who are stuck in poverty. |
TNC replies to these kinds of objections. Particularly, he responds to the idea that blacks should not be compensated because there's plenty of horrible things in American history.
| Quote: |
In this country, at this moment, "African-Americans" are an ethnic group comprised of individuals of varying degrees of direct African ancestry. Nothing about this fact necessitated plunder or injury, and it is the injury—through red-lining, black codes, slaves codes, lynching, ghettoization, fraud, rape, and murder—with which reparations concerns itself. The point is not "racial apportionment," which is to say giving people things because they are black. It is injury apportionment, which is to say restoring things to people who have been plundered.
. . .
Williamson believes that reparations must either boil down to a "symbolic political process" or a series of polices that helps America's poor and disproportionately aids African-Americans. How, Williamson asks, can one make a claim on behalf of Sasha and Malia Obama, in a world of poor whites? In much the same way that a factory which pumps toxins into a poor neighborhood is not indemnified because a plaintiff rises to become a millionaire. Taking Williamson's argument to its logical conclusion, a businessman brutalized by the police should never sue the city because, well, homelessness. |
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Well, what you said is grammatically correct: he does in fact reply to these kinds of objections. He doesn't adequately refute them, but he replies to them. That's part of the problem with this entire piece: it's got a lot of talking, a fair number of facts, and a near total absence of rationally-persuasive argumentation. Look at the example you've given here for instance. A factory which dumps toxins into a poor neighborhood has a finite set of identifiable victims, a finite set of identifiable perpetrators, a specific harmful crime which links the two together, and a form of harm which is not necessarily strictly economic in character, meaning that later economic success doesn't prove the absence of said harm. Mr. Identify-Politics Blogger's case is the exact opposite: it has a vague racial category of "victims," a vague racial category of "perpetrators," and a variety of examples of abuse which on a case-by-case basis don't necessarily involve any particular member of either group, and an argument based largely on economic harm, meaning that later economic success is a challenge which he needs to (but cannot) meet. Yes, that's a "reply," but not one we should take seriously. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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Pre-reparations white person driving through the ghetto: "the poor oppressed former slaves etc tear etc tear"
Post-reparations white person driving through the ghetto: "they blew it and nothing changed fk it there is nothing we can do, it's not our fault, it's them and not us".
Worth it. Just need to make sure it is big enough that they can't pull a Krugman and say "the stimulus just wasn't big enough!"
B/C nothing will change. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
Pre-reparations white person driving through the ghetto: "the poor oppressed former slaves etc tear etc tear"
Post-reparations white person driving through the ghetto: "they blew it and nothing changed fk it there is nothing we can do, it's not our fault, it's them and not us".
Worth it. Just need to make sure it is big enough that they can't pull a Krugman and say "the stimulus just wasn't big enough!"
B/C nothing will change. |
There is no amount that could possibly be given which would avoid the "it just wasn't big enough" response. At least one guy supporting this has already spoken in terms of quadrillions of dollars; the foundation for "It just wans't big enough" has already been laid. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
Pre-reparations white person driving through the ghetto: "the poor oppressed former slaves etc tear etc tear"
Post-reparations white person driving through the ghetto: "they blew it and nothing changed fk it there is nothing we can do, it's not our fault, it's them and not us".
Worth it. Just need to make sure it is big enough that they can't pull a Krugman and say "the stimulus just wasn't big enough!"
B/C nothing will change. |
That was pretty good. You even got in a dig at Krugman in there.
One last big massive push and then its done. Imagine a world where the Supreme Court does not have to micromanage public college admissions policies. There will be some blacks who use their reparations to build themselves a better life than they would have otherwise. I do not pretend to know whether reparations will end ghettos. That seems far too ambitious for even a trillion dollar reparations package. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 5:12 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
If an atypical number of Blacks are afflicted by poverty, then generous and effectively-crafted anti-poverty programs will be atypically beneficial to Blacks. That's reasonable, I can accept it and even approve of it. But to suggest that modern "White Americans" owe modern "Black Americans" some sort of collective debt? Completely unreasonable. Yes, Blacks are generally among America's most unfortunate from a historic perspective, but it's a matter of degree, not of kind. Blacks are not the only ones who have had their property seized, Blacks are not the only ones who have been forced to labor, Blacks are not the only ones who have been taken advantage of by the economic elite. There's plenty of horrible things in American history. The answer isn't blood guilt, it's to implement policy to minimize the lingering effects of such historic problems, not just for Blacks, but for all who are stuck in poverty. |
The Benefits of Redressing Racism With Race-Neutral Remedies.
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Imagine, for argument's sake, that an effort to redress redlining began by identifying all homeowners who were hurt by the practice and gradually compensating them for their lost property value by waiving their property taxes; say we compensated those wrongly denied home loans because of their race with cash; say federal grants were made available to formerly redlined neighborhoods to ensure efficient public transportation to a range of job opportunities; and say that students attending underperforming schools in redlined neighborhoods got a voucher to increase spending at whatever school they chose to attend. These specific proposals may be flawed or inadequate or too expensive, but I offer them to give a sense of the scale of redress I find appropriate and to raise this point: To tackle redlining and its legacy in this way, policymakers could make redress available to black people (however defined) hurt in these neighborhoods, citing the singular experience of blacks in America and Coates' reparations arguments.
Alternatively, one can imagine the same redress being made available to any individual injured by redlining and its legacy, in which case blacks would still benefit disproportionately; but non-blacks injured by the same policies would get justice too. Hispanics in America haven't faced historic group injustices equal to what blacks faced. I am still loath to examine the history of redlining in America, to address its victims and legacy, and to exclude Hispanics undeniably hurt by the very same policies when it is no harder to identify wronged individuals.
A race-neutral approach could still include a historic inquiry into the practice of redlining that would accurately highlight the disproportionate ways that it targeted and harmed blacks. Black victims of redlining would get their measure of justice and recompense as surely as they would under a race-specific policy. Yet when the chosen frame is "let's redress victims of insidious housing discrimination" instead of "let's study reparations," many widely held objections to Coates' essay fall away, as do the significant majorities preemptively opposed to reparations.
There is much less risk of pitting groups against one another in our increasingly diverse country. And some of the thorniest problems of implementation go away too.
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A concluding example.
The 14th Amendment was crafted by a Congress that fully confronted the reality of black-voter suppression in the South. It attempted to redress that wrong by restoring a right denied. But for the subjugation of blacks, the amendment never would have been considered. At the same time, it offers an unmistakably race-neutral remedy, "No State shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." No one would deny that slavery had a singular impact on blacks. No one would deny that Southern voter suppression targeted blacks as a group. No one would deny the need for a remedy to save blacks as a group from repression. Aren't you still glad that the 14th Amendment is written as it is? |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.amren.com/news/2014/06/faa-changes-hiring-practices-for-air-traffic-controllers-ignoring-qualified-students-and-vets/
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| Thousands of potential FAA air traffic control trainees, with College Initiative Training (CTI) degrees or previous military experience, have been told by the federal agency they are no longer eligible for job interviews. Instead, the FAA has decided to accept less qualified applicants, apparently to satisfy concerns that the agency needs a more diverse workforce. |
The whole thing is worth a read and is really disgusting. They're not hiring the most qualified applicants (ie the ones least likely to cause a mid-air collision) because they are white. It has gone way too far. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 5:26 am Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-B_kmAebbQ
^ The underclass. |
Dude, Russia is a pit of crime of all sorts, if I transfer your thinking, then what does it say about the Slavs? http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/09/19/224043848/the-u-s-has-more-guns-but-russia-has-more-murders
The picture gets more bleak when looking at rates of drug use, alcohol abuse, and percentage of organized crime making up the economy. If we use genetics to explain one problem, why not this one? |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 5:37 am Post subject: |
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Leon, you've jumped up and down demanding that one must not reference the scorched earth of American war mongering when discussing Russian actions in Crimea. The two are unrelated. Now we're going to make these comparisons?
Anyway, yes, Russia has an enormous underclass of drunken waste. Best to pay these people not to breed. Maybe reparations to the underclass will help? |
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