Essay talk:Reparations

Unless you want to write about all major instances of or cases for reparations, e.g. Native Americans getting reparations from the US, African and Asian nations getting reparations for being formerly colonized (some under pretty nasty conditions), you should probably move this to a more specific title. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:28, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This mentions reparations only in the intro. I guess (what with it being an unfinished piece) it may be working up to something about reparations & why nobody should get any, but in it's current state it's just an essay about why U.S. slavery is not that big a deal based on tired on old red herrings like "blacks enslaved their own people", "white indentured servants were pretty much the same as slaves" & "other countries had more slaves than the U.S."  02:00, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Eh, planning on to getting into the long-term effects today. CorruptUser (talk) 00:49, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Reparations would have been a great idea, but it's 150 years to late for that.
When the civil war ended, the idea of reparations was brought up and actually implemented to some very limited degree. However, there was (for reasons best explored elsewhere) not enough political will to take away from the traitors and give the freedmen and once the last person born into slavery died, the whole thing became incredibly more complicated. Many Americans are now descendant from both slaves and owners, and not in all cases is it the more or less forced relationships that were going on on plantations. Yes, some families still have the remains of their ill gotten slavery profits, but far more don't. Yes, African Americans are still disadvantaged and arguably it is because of slavery and Jim Crow, but it is much more of a societal than an individual problem. What could be done is locking up the last few George Wallaces and Orval Faubuses and Southern policemen who literally stood in the way of civil rights. But I dislike the assignment of collective guilt or innocence. Pizzameister (talk) 19:32, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The issue is that black people are still being fucked over by society, and something needs to be done. That may not be reparations, but it can't be nothing. CorruptUser (talk) 05:03, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


 * No doubt that black people are still being fucked over (though they are far from the only ones) and no doubt Jim Crow and slavery are major contributing factors in that. But unfortunately many of those guilty of either are now long dead and the few that still survive are either tattering old fools or have indeed recanted (Wallace for instance did). Yes, we could expropriate every last white supremacist group, but the amount of money that would bring is about a half cent on the Benjamin Franklin to solve the problem. And sorry, reparations paid by state actors? This won't pass a vote. Period. Pizzameister (talk) 18:06, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Why all the focus on slavery specifically?
There's a reason why TNC, for instance, writes about Tulsa and the deleterious effects of redlining or the sheer efforts of white suburbanites to keep blacks out as the postwar building boom began, or why many reparations advocates mention how a lot of the primary targets for lynchings in the South were upwardly mobile blacks who worked hard, went to school, opened businesses only to get killed and have their stuff given to a good ol' white boy. Focusing on slavery alone and how "it was 150 years ago!!!!" seems like a way to make it much easier to dismiss the concept entirely. 174.67.219.173 (talk)
 * Certainly. Slavery was not the last bad thing that happened to African Americans. And it did not end in 1865. In fact, when MLK was speaking of sons of slaves, he was literally right. There were sons of slaves. Sons of people convicted of bogus crimes and "punished" with forced labor as just one aspect of Jim Crow. The death of the American inner city had as much to do with race as it had to do with cars and GI Bills. And some of this can still be reversed. However, reparations may not be the right way to go about it. But please don't ask me what would. Pizzameister (talk) 00:22, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not asking you what would, and it's kind of rich for you to say that after dismissively saying "oh it's 150 years too late [because I'm fixating on slavery]" right in the section above.
 * It's 150 years to late to right the specific wrong of slavery. And I have addressed here why reparations might not be the right way to right the wrongs that can still be addressed. However, ending the drug war and paying reparations to its victims is probably not going to do all that much harm either and that can still be done. Pizzameister (talk) 15:32, 21 March 2016 (UTC)