tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post8591321218433715089..comments2024-03-28T03:16:14.104-04:00Comments on Noahpinion: "Reparations" sounds too backwards-lookingNoah Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-63297399453739253732014-06-16T02:40:22.572-04:002014-06-16T02:40:22.572-04:00The "guilt of your predecessors" is not ...The "guilt of your predecessors" is not just about slavery, but all kinds of discrimination actively promoted by this government, within your lifetime. The question that Coates poses is this: why is the theft against the black population acceptable, and why is the concept of reparations taboo? We are talking about theft of wealth, theft of inheritance that has gone on for hundreds of years, and the theft that has gone on in your lifetime continues to promote social ills among black people. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-2137178143526622282014-06-14T22:52:25.987-04:002014-06-14T22:52:25.987-04:00It seems to me that reparations in a depressed eco...It seems to me that reparations in a depressed economy would lead to intensified racial resentment. I don't know if Coates discussed timing. But scarcity makes people more conflict prone and more suspicious and we are in a period of scarcity now. <br />One of my issues with identity politics (and I am a liberal) is that there is too much attention to entitlements and not enough to prosperity. I think we need to fight for broad based prosperity. The decline of the middle class is correlated with the rise of identity politics and no, I'm not a white male. we got what we fought for: lots and lots and lots of identity based movements and these have made positive change. But we didn't fight for broad based prosperity and hey: clue. I'm poorer for that and so are you. So are Black people. The bottom fell out for less educated Black males when industry decamped from the northern cities to the South, China, etc. I know this because I grew up with deindustrialization and no I'm not Black but I grew up in an integrated northern inner city community that suffered intensely from white flight. I saw decay that identity politics and civil rights could not fix. Clue: social programs do not jobs make. Neither will reparations. I am not against identity politics (or reparations) but whoa, the priorities are way way off. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-72136224716467348342014-06-14T12:11:26.140-04:002014-06-14T12:11:26.140-04:00Gordon, My comment was not meant to insult you. In...Gordon, My comment was not meant to insult you. Internalizing the guilt of our predecessors is not a way forward. There does exist an incredible amount of latent and active racism in America today, but the folks who manifest this racism are unlikely to "...embrace the past fully..." and move in a positive direction. We need to open the gate and move them forward, with or without repentance. (I think I got a "C" in typing class in 1972, so I was probably too snarky.)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10790574845701761554noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-87668975157153810592014-06-13T18:34:05.258-04:002014-06-13T18:34:05.258-04:00Larry, Thank you for pointing out my poor sentence...Larry, Thank you for pointing out my poor sentence structure and the fact that Noah did not say "no" to reparations. My comment was based more on the tone of the article. It seems to be about moving forward with the right attitudes and not spending more time looking at the past. My point is that unless we embrace the past fully, we'll never effectively leave it behind. For years our society has been telling African Americans that the people who enslaved their ancestors are all dead so they should just move on. That's not getting the job done. The legacy effects us all to this day. The Ta-Nehisi Coates article lays out many of the particular instances where this is shown. <br /><br />There's no need to be so insulting when making your point. And, watch out for the fools who can barely type. They hardly know when to use the plural or possessive when making their point.Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-27216990009293176822014-06-13T13:27:07.200-04:002014-06-13T13:27:07.200-04:00Noah, Your point seems too sophisticated and nuanc...Noah, Your point seems too sophisticated and nuanced to be understood by some of the fools here who can barely type. I thought it was straight forward. We can't change the past (as much as we may regret our nations shortcomings), we can change what the future will be for the better. How is this so controversial? <br /><br />Noah did not say "no" to reparations, he said it was a poor way to frame the discussion. Obviously, his recommendations imply reparations as well as political and cultural changes. If being able to read is this controversial, perhaps we do have a shortage of skilled workers in the labor market.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10790574845701761554noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-81978076584588352362014-06-13T09:56:08.096-04:002014-06-13T09:56:08.096-04:00I'm surprised at you Noah. Two articles ago yo...I'm surprised at you Noah. Two articles ago you wrote a good piece on Millennials and racism. You point out all the areas in society where African Americans have been or are wrongly treated and how something should be done to rectify the situation, then in this article you say "no" to reparations. Part of the reason Germany has more effectively moved past the Holocaust than we have past slavery, Jim Crow, and Red Lining is that it made reparations to the Jewish people it persecuted. By doing that, German society admitted its wrongs and made efforts to make things right. That rebooted, in a sense, the relationship between the victims and the aggressors. We've never done that in the USA and it needs to happen so we can all move beyond. The size and scope of any reparations would be tricky to quantify but doable. It's a similar problem to quantifying the value of all the free labor enslaved people provided over hundreds of years and the resulting growth of wealth from the profits of said labor. And, for all those of you who disagree and say black people get reparations due to welfare payments, that doesn't count because white people get the same thing and they were never enslaved, nor suffered from Jim Crow segregation, never lynched, nor red lined. Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-5391374717729500332014-06-13T04:02:31.044-04:002014-06-13T04:02:31.044-04:00How about this as a start?
http://en.wikipedia.or...How about this as a start?<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations#Apology_textdavidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18149129058044597506noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-45720030260317992932014-06-11T23:09:09.536-04:002014-06-11T23:09:09.536-04:00pretty sure everyone commenting here is white.... ...pretty sure everyone commenting here is white.... most likely a white male... Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-23103469921177530352014-06-11T17:55:49.457-04:002014-06-11T17:55:49.457-04:00This was going to be my point as to Noah's pol...This was going to be my point as to Noah's policy prescription. They killed even affirmative action....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-87995433282134405402014-06-11T17:41:23.255-04:002014-06-11T17:41:23.255-04:00First assume a spherical society... therefore glib...First assume a spherical society... therefore gliberatopia!!!!<br /><br />So what if you have to ignore a bunch of to get to your result...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-74768725798900149352014-06-11T17:32:55.154-04:002014-06-11T17:32:55.154-04:00Bad stuff happens... hand wave hand wave... theref...Bad stuff happens... hand wave hand wave... therefore I don't need to think too hard about the accounting. Way to punt on the issue.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-47836483657399325122014-06-11T15:56:40.666-04:002014-06-11T15:56:40.666-04:00I will state up front that the current situation o...I will state up front that the current situation of Japanese Americans is in no way comparable to that faced by African Americans. But they did face historical discrimination, and Coates is concerned with that. And in terms of "institutions", college application committees rather blatantly discriminate against asians. It is chiefly they, rather than whites, who lose out as a result of affirmative action. But to reiterate, I agree these are very different situations.<br /><br />To the second anonymous, we have a president whose father was a Kenyan who went to college in America. We've never had a president descended from those who suffered the historical wrongs Coates is writing about. And since I brought up affirmative action earlier, it's beneficiaries tend to disproportionately be those who are not descended from slaves but rather immigrants from the west indies (like Colin Powell or Eric Holder's parents) or Africa, and often as not raised by white parents in white communities (like Obama). Jamelle Bouie has written in Slate about the importance of such neighborhood effects (which might justify the Texas model of accepting the top X% of students from each high school). SCOTUS has ruled that the benefits of diversity are the justification for affirmative action in higher education. If it was crafted to address historical injustice and the hurdles faced by disadvantaged students today, it might be reshaped.TGGPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11017651009634767649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-80655379170200025392014-06-11T15:03:36.060-04:002014-06-11T15:03:36.060-04:00If it is on-going then clearly no repentance can b...If it is on-going then clearly no repentance can be real or effective... Which is one of the points Noah made...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02635749385748660522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-8956552983462342932014-06-11T12:44:13.291-04:002014-06-11T12:44:13.291-04:00Vile and repulsive argument. Jews have been histor...Vile and repulsive argument. Jews have been historical "Jew"elers because diamonds were portable wealth and non-jews were constantly looking to confiscate their wealth. Behind the Nazi ersatz shtick, they were simply a confiscatory movement that looked to confiscate Jewish wealth. This is a pattern that has happened in Spain, England, etc. where Jewish wealth was confiscated, net worth 100% tax style, by envious non-Jews. People who are serious about fighting anti-Semitism should be obsessed with property rights, not left-wing fetishism. <br /><br />The Holocaust looks a great deal like the French Revolution, where aristocratic wealth was confiscated. Regarding, reparations, there was a suit against German banks that recovered 5 billion confiscated from wealthy Jews. Again, this is not something you would expect because you would rather focus on German "Aryan speak" when the Nazi's were simply socialist style wealth confiscators. "Schindler's List" deals with this in depth and it is no coincidence that the guy who produced Shindler's List is a rabid Tea Party follower.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-58425963677589591852014-06-11T12:25:01.152-04:002014-06-11T12:25:01.152-04:00For real though, did you just read the title of hi...For real though, did you just read the title of his piece, look up reparations, and riff on what you found there? Or are you actually reacting to TNC's piece? In one case you are lazy, but not very difference than other bloggers, in the other I have to question your reading comprehension.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-87856416545140608312014-06-11T11:44:31.163-04:002014-06-11T11:44:31.163-04:00History is full of horrors.
Who is entitled to ...History is full of horrors. <br /><br />Who is entitled to compensation for past wrongs and who is obligated to pay? The direct victims and perpetrators are all dead. <br /><br />Absalonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09131268683451462949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-46103490482941191522014-06-11T11:37:13.341-04:002014-06-11T11:37:13.341-04:00One of the problems of the idea of reparations as ...One of the problems of the idea of reparations as some sort of compensation for past wrongs is that taken as a whole, and on average, African Americans descended from slaves are probably more closely linked genetically to slave owners than they are to the people they want compensation from. Absalonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09131268683451462949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-11125919170571393752014-06-11T11:06:15.008-04:002014-06-11T11:06:15.008-04:00Coates's argument seems to be that blacks are ...Coates's argument seems to be that blacks are hurt economically by living in proximity to other blacks. Blacks are the only group in America that makes this claim. Koreans in Korea Towns do fine economically around other Koreans; same with Jews in Jewish neighborhoods, etc.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-14194410932245957412014-06-11T10:55:27.198-04:002014-06-11T10:55:27.198-04:00Two comments:
1. As a person from a developing cou...Two comments:<br />1. As a person from a developing country, I think it is unforgivable to condone German atrocities committed against not only Jews, but other communities such as Poles, Ukrainian, Belorussians, Russians, and others. To be not upset about the Holocaust is not something a human being can be proud of.<br />2. Similarly, one cannot forget the atrocities committed against Native Americans, people of Japanese origin (during WW2), etc. The story is not only about African Americans, although it is a very visible and legitimate case for grave concern. I find it strange that no one has mentioned this in their comments.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-8767277533310118442014-06-11T10:08:39.895-04:002014-06-11T10:08:39.895-04:00well, and as Coates explains at length, there was ...well, and as Coates explains at length, there was plenty of discrimination post-Jim Crow, especially as it related to housing. Housing wealth was and is one of the biggest sources of middle class wealth in the country. And as Coates also explains, this discrimination may no longer be de jure, but it absolutely continues de facto to this day.brgriffihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10184697440532324934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-22309657738581547122014-06-11T07:33:19.066-04:002014-06-11T07:33:19.066-04:00Frame can make a photo more Attractive.We look our...Frame can make a photo more Attractive.We look our past in Photo.Whenever we want to hang a photo on wall we required a frame.<a href="http://www.frameshop.com.au/" rel="nofollow">Frame Shop</a> provides all Framing services to its customer.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04688741416028198986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-35185746810998614352014-06-10T22:09:02.833-04:002014-06-10T22:09:02.833-04:00Humans didn't start doing nasty shit to each o...Humans didn't start doing nasty shit to each other in recent or even recorded history, it's been around as long as we have. Where do you draw the line? In fact, it's the underlying story of biology. As a song might say, even algae in the Archean did it. <br /><br />Exploitation is the story of biology. What is different about humans is that we are able - to an unprecedented degree - to forgo the immediate individual benefit of exploitation for greater gains via group benefit, though it takes little more than a bit of stress or a good to revert us to the reptilian take on the world. Personally, I support this tenuous move to sociability and even civility and think we should sustain and enhance it. However, requiring every wrong to be righted as part of this grand project is misguided and simply unachievable. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br />Jim Birchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07415199338332642534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-25026807216905300092014-06-10T21:57:03.530-04:002014-06-10T21:57:03.530-04:00Noah, I wonder if this post would've been diff...Noah, I wonder if this post would've been different had you been Armenian.<br />As you probably know, the Armenian Genocide remains not only unrecognized, but also systematically denied.<br /> So as a Jewish person, it's easy to not be mad at Germany - They've accepted what they did and have tried to make amends for it. Yes, like you said, doing as many good things wont ever make up for the bad things. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do any good things at all.<br /><br />This doesn't mean I support what Coates' is saying<br />(FWIW: I havent read Coates' article so I don't know exactly what he is saying. Seems hard to properly give reparations to people you cannot directly trace the crimes to...as opposed to a nation which directly did suffer because of X crime).<br /><br />But I think you're being WAY too dismissive about the reparations claim. <br />You look backwards in order to move forwards - not the other way around (looking forward in order to not look backward).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-12592214537018862332014-06-10T21:46:33.135-04:002014-06-10T21:46:33.135-04:00D'OHD'OHNoah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-19790971685345935692014-06-10T21:33:34.093-04:002014-06-10T21:33:34.093-04:00Noah, posting a rambling, inept, half-baked critiq...Noah, posting a rambling, inept, half-baked critique of Ta-Nehisi Coates' argument for reparations is NOT going to get him to respond in your comments section. And you look a bit foolish trying. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com