I cant speak for all of the UK's former colonies but i expect most are just happy to have you out of their hair and happy enough to continue on their own way, relatively free of your influence. African Americans dont have that. A UK reparation bill would be hilarious though, i'd probably take you centuries to pay off.
Reparations discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I cant speak for all of the UK's former colonies but i expect most are just happy to have you out of their hair and happy enough to continue on their own way, relatively free of your influence. African Americans dont have that. A UK reparation bill would be hilarious though, i'd probably take you centuries to pay off.
I don't get this mindset.
It seems a little too close to the attitude of "well if you don't like it, go back to where you came from" for my liking.
As odd as it sounds, personally I would rather people say that stuff out loud so I know where they stand than the types of quiet racists that act one way to your face and another behind your back you know?
Is this a serious post?
If someone is immigrating to the US they are likely doing so because of economic opportunity. That economic opportunity exists directly because of the atrocities committed in the name of slavery, manifest destiny, de-population of the native population, etc. To me its massively selfish to think that someone deserves all the economic opportunities on offer but thinks they have zero obligations because of the historical conditions that resulted. In other words they want all the benefits but want none of the obligations.
I know one objection might be 'what about people immigrating to escape violence or what about people migrating to the US directly as a result of US atrocity (Central America, Micronesia)'. That is fair theoretically. But pragmatically those wouldn't be the people paying the cost of the reparations. Realistically the bottom 50% in America is so economically disadvantaged they literally can't pay any of the reparations cost so a lot of that objection is just a moot point (reparations come from Federal taxes and the bottom 50% tax burden comes from sales tax, state and local taxes and fees rather than Federal).
And that in a nutshell is what a lot of the people are missing. If someone gets hired Wall Street company and they immigrate to US in 2015 from Japan or Brazil, part of that salary+benefits exists because of the value stripped from generations of the oppressed. When the system itself was built on oppression, reformating the system isn't ultimately "punishing" anyone, its adjusting the system to attempt to redress centuries of unfairly stolen wealth.
Those are the people that should be benefiting though. Imo the reparations should be more targeted at the lower classes than just specifically the descendants of slaves, but as we know blacks disproportionately make up a large amount of the poverty stricken class. The richer classes (including descendants of slave traders) should be funding a better life for people in poverty, and that includes the people in your second paragraph. Making people already in the lower classes pay for it seems counter-productive imo. What about middle class black people who can trace their lineage back to slavery? Should they receive money from a lower class legal immigrant barely making it by?
My point is the bold is simply wrong.
No system I have seen discussed in this thread or in the hearings ever has the "lower classes paying for it". That's what I'm saying. Even if you funded reparations 100% through future taxes the lower classes wouldn't be paying for it because the lower classes don't pay Federal taxes.
What I am saying is your argument makes no sense in reality. No system suggest comes close to having "lower classes pay for reparations". That's just a dishonest argument being spouted by the far right at the moment.
Well it sure as shit wouldn’t be paid by the wealthy who do a very good job of tax avoidance.
How would you fund it ?
So far the number for reparations is between 5 - 12 trillions dollars, that's a lot of cash.
I'm not going to debate specific numbers but the same way things like medicare for all and other have to be funded: by fundamentally changing our system away from privatizing profits and socializing the risk. Its why we need people like Warren that know how to organize the numbers crunching because fundamentally all this is doable if the right people are put in place and we work with extended time frames.
Also some sacrifices will obviously have to be made - reparations for 5 trillion are going to have to be spread over a longer time frame and tied into other aspects. The US system is approaching the need for triage so while we can't obviously do everything all at once (and that is always going to be a counter from the right - "can't do it all so why bother doing anything" type shit) we can certainly start planning and implementing long term solutions for everything. Reparations won't be paid out in a single lump sum but in accounts that pay out over time.
Ultimately what needs to happen to prevent a long term decline and collapse of US market capitalism is a shift towards a social capitalist model from the bottom up (outright old school socialism is of course impossible, but modern social capitalism is absolutely feasible in the next 10-15 years). That mix is going to have to include a number of things and they will have to be structured in a way that creates more economic virtuous circles (like how California created a positive economic feedback loop for energy efficiency). The biggest enemy I think for long term efficiency is the greed that causes stat juking for short term profits.
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You’re not talking about reparations any longer, you’re talking about extending the welfare system. In doing so, you’re no longer using need based assistance, but changing it to an ancestry based system.
If there is a way to identify slave owner lineage and slave lineage, and have a program funded where slave owner lineage pay directly to slave lineage, then fine, we can talk about that.
The very idea of taking anything from people that a) weren’t even alive at that time, b) may or may not have had any slave ownership in their family, or c) possibly had family members die in a war fighting for the very freedom of slaves, is just wrong. Full stop.
This makes less sense than just having the nation pay for it through tax revenue.
Ok. All white southerners to pay the full amount.
No I am talking about beginning the fundamental shift away from the theoretical laissez-faire market fundamentalism/practical corporate mercantilism that the US operates under now to a modern social capitalist model (I don't like the term "democratic socialism" myself because I feel its too confusing and not a very clear and concise phrase).
Without an updated and expanded social welfare safety net the US is heading for an extended decline. The stripping of wealth from the bottom 80% to the top 1% has to be reversed otherwise things are going to get very bad in the states.
It is certainly more difficult, yes.
But if we truly want “reparations” than the wronged group should be paid by those who wronged them.
Anything else isn’t reparations, it’s a new social program. If that is the best way to go about it, then fine, but let’s not confuse the two.
Do I feel that “reparations” should be implemented, yes, pretty strongly. I also feel equally as strong stating that having anyone who bore no responsibility on the hook for “reparations” is completely wrong.
Wrong thread. This is the reparations thread.
The country wronged them. It’s been stated before in this thread... the whole nation benefited from the oppressions of slavery, not just the slave states or slave owners.
The only entity that I know of still in existence that bears responsibility for slavery is the United States Government.
They are fundamentally connected. I was asked by @Sweet Square how to pay for it. That is part of the answer. If the question is "how do you pay for reparations next year within the precise system the US has now without changing the system at all?" the answer is obviously duh, we can't.
If you want a serious discussion though about how reparations could most efficiently be paid out then the economically serious answer is that they have to paid out over a longer time frame and they have to be connected to a larger fundamental shift in US policy because the current US system that prioritizes profits for the top and socializing the risk to the bottom through lack of national health care, etc isn't sustainably capable of paying for reparations.
So do you want a serious discussion that takes into account the big picture or do you want to go back to non-productive jingoism.
The government, aka the country itself, wronged them.
The US govmnt doesn’t have any money that’s not given to it by taxpayers.
Imagine being a descendant from a line of abolitionists and then having to pay for slavery?
How would mixed raced people pay? The complications are endless.
I’m not against the idea but fair to say there is no easy solution.
This types of comments are weird to me because I feel like you are speaking for other people that are perfectly capable of for speaking for themselves. What is your opinion for yourself not trying to say what other people think.
I say that as a mixed minority races that were never slave owners that moved to the US after slavery that always opposed Jim Crow laws that 100% believes we need to restructure our system and reparations should be part of it. I feel like you are trying to speak for me with comments like this when you do not speak for me.
I'm not saying there is an easy solution. But the government of the United States sanctioned slavery. It still exists. No individual that owned or sailed slave ships, or owned or sold slaves is still alive.
Imagine being descended from a slave and being married to someone descended from a slave owner. Imagine not even knowing you're descended from slave owners until you get a reparations bill in the mail. There's tons of situations like that that show that it's just unfeasible to ask descendants of slave owners pay descendants of slaves.
I want a discussion on how we can devise something that is fair and equitable. One that I can actually get behind and isn’t hidden within the confines of some other agenda.
Reparation has a relatively simple definition, start there.
To actually claim that immigrants coming to the US 150 years after slavery ended need to pay their fair share, doesn’t start your quest off in the best light.
If you want to up the welfare system to include more lucrative payments, then just state that and we can talk about it. There were ~360,000 people who died fighting for the freedom we enjoy today - to want/expect/force those who had no role in slavery to pay is disingenuous.
The entire way you are framing this is just weird to me. I already explained my point of view: Reparations cannot be paid out within the confines of the current US policies without fundamentally changing those policies.
Stuff like the bold just sounds like hollow condescension when you have no idea who are talking to in this thread so maybe back away from trying to claim ~360,000 people who died fighting as some kind of moral support of your views. Some of the people who believe in reparations have family members amongst those people that died as well. Maybe you should respect their beliefs differ from yours.
To put it another way, you don't speak for my family so don't be claiming people you don't know. You don't speak for all those 360,000 so keep your speaking on this level to yourself or your personal friends and family.
Not trying to speak for you at all, or anyone else, just pointing out the difficulty in it all. I feel it’s so unworkable. CR mentions the US govmnt but that’s the 350m people.
If the money comes from the govmnt then it comes from ordinary taxpayers and per usual the middle class would bear the brunt.
I’ve been here in the US less than 30 years and so would feel aggrieved to have to pay for something I’d nothing to do with.
Did I benefit from the results? Maybe, but it’s a stretch.
A lot of that in this thread. People will ignore what you say and then attempt to speak for you (from your perspective) in the next post
Apologies if it was taken that I was speaking for others. Just trying (maybe poorly) to underline the difficulties of it all.
I'm just going to summarize my view here. No worries on misunderstandings of phrasing, I don't think you meant ill.
First, its impossible to separate the current economic successes from the oppression from slavery and concomitant policy. You don't 'feel' like you benefit because the benefits have already been baked into the system for longer than we have been alive.
Second, I don't get the where the money comes from complaint when my entire life my tax dollars pay for things I don't agree with. I didn't want billions spent on the Iraq war, I didn't want companies like Halliburton to rip off the taxpayers through false claims, I didn't want trillions of taxpayer dollars spent to bailout the banks when better bottom-up alternatives existed, I didn't want to bail out all the profits from Enron from the California energy de-regulation, etc. I think you would find the majority of taxpayers would actually prefer their tax dollars spent on something fair like reparations than underwriting Wall Street billionaires.
Third, I already said the only way to realistically pay reparations is over time and by fundamentally changing the system to accommodate for it.
(the way I actually envision it working realistically is building up over time so the first few years it might only pay beneficiaries cents, then for a few years dollars, then up to tens of dollars, then hundreds then probably topping out at a benefit of thousands per year for a period of 30 years or something. I don't think its going to be like one lump sum of 100,000 pay out in a single year - its probably going to be combined with things like tax breaks and other benefits not direct cash payouts)
Yeah, I think thats becoming common from some quarters now.
In what alternative is this not true?
Wow. I haven’t spoken for you at all, yet you want to preach about accepting different opinions? With that reaction?
I haven’t claimed shit for you and respect any opinion you and your family may have. That said, you don’t exactly come across as one who would be too accepting of me and my family’s opinion.
As mentioned above, there is far from a unanimous want of reparations from within our own community. To think that it would have widespread acceptance in other communities is extremely naive.
You’ve pretty much answered your own question. Reparations can’t be paid out of the current system, so you want the system changed. You really want to change an entire economical system to fit the payment of reparations?
What’s more important to you, a new system or righting the wrong that has been committed?
CR, I genuinely don’t understand your reply. Please rephrase so a simpleton (me) can get it.Ok but for real, who are the people that would feel a way if they were informed that for a few years their taxes may be used to aid reperations versus some other thing you wouldn't like to pay for? What are your backgrounds?
You say that having the government foot the bill will lead to average joe, middle class taxpayers having to pay it.
What alternative method of paying doesn’t lead to this?
I didn't have a question. Someone else asked me the question of how I envision reparations being paid for and I gave a short answer for that. The second part of the bold you have all twisted. I want the system changed because the current system is broken, inefficient and unfair. As a part of fixing the broken and unfair system baking in reparations moving forward is the morally correct thing to do.
And the final question is just a false dichotomy. Its not a either/or, one or the other question. They both go together.
That’s why it’s difficult.
If there was a way to make those responsible (the heirs) and those that benefited (the Duke family? were they slaveholders?) pay directly, perhaps that would be a fair solution.
Someone made the point that the US govmnt spends on a lot of unpopular things, like the Iraq war. This is true, and it still pisses me off that they took my taxes to piss away over there, when I was dead against that war. But to do it for reparations doesn’t feel right to me either. Maybe that’s just me being selfish but I honestly don’t think I am.
Fair enough. You’re consistent if nothing else.
How exactly would you describe these “heirs”?
It seems like folks must believe most of the descendants of slaveowners are still living in their plantation houses sipping tea on the porch.
On top of that, it’s been 150+ years. Descendants of slave owners and abolitionists are intermarried now. Same for descendants of slave owners and descendants of slaves. It’s impossible other than to just have the government pay it.
Serious question but wouldn’t a form of universal basic income count enough as reparations and have the least difficult logistics?