Are Doc Rich & Thomas Sowell right about slavery & reparations?

[GummyVitamins]

Sowell rationalizing slavery in this country by claiming that it happened elsewhere reminds me of my students who, when I ask them to stop talking in class, rationalize it by saying others are talking too. It's just not a rational argument. Try telling a cop giving you a speeding ticket that everyone else is speeding too and see what it gets you. Dude, guess what? You're still guilty.

You should watch the video again because there was a clear comprehension issue. He never "rationalized slavery" so let's stop lying about his position and try attacking what he did say versus what you apparently want him to have said. He said slavery is/was a global problem to the degree that if we were to give reparations to every descendent of slaves we'd have to give half of the world reparations. It's an unsustainable theory.

 

[j brown's body]

This article I came across by chance has, I think, a very profound view of reparations here.

"We no longer believe in bad seed or bad blood. Still, the idea that we are tainted by the sins of our fathers has a long and profound history. According to traditional Christianity, nothing we can do is enough to expiate them: we are all doomed to die for the fall of Adam and Eve, and salvation can come only after death. According to the Old Testament, we must serve some time for the sins of our fathers, unto the third and fourth generation. These traditions run deep even for those who might have rejected them, for they have a reasonable core. We all of us benefit from inheritances we did not choose and cannot change. Growing up involves deciding which part of the inheritance you want to claim as your own, and how much you have to pay for the rest of it. This is as true for nations as it is for individuals."

Link

White America is in a perpetual state of adolescence. Everyone must defer to them. Everyone else is wrong. It has never been able to grow up and come to terms, honestly, with its racist sins of the past. Look at how it's attacking the teaching of racism in school, all afraid it's going to get its feelings hurt. It's way past time it grew up.

Coates eludes to this at the end of his reparations piece:

"An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane....More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the
childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom worthy of its founders."

Reparations would free white America. But white America fears freedom.

The Case for Reparations

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[j brown's body]

You should watch the video again because there was a clear comprehension issue. He never "rationalized slavery" so let's stop lying about his position and try attacking what he did say versus what you apparently want him to have said. He said slavery is/was a global problem to the degree that if we were to give reparations to every descendent of slaves we'd have to give half of the world reparations. It's an unsustainable theory.

Are we really responsible for all the slavery around the world?

His argument that we are so massively guilty of crimes against so many people that it is best to just ignore it all together and let the perpetrator off the hook seems terribly absurd to me.

It seems uttered by one who is claiming "all well that ends well," but that's clearly not true, even though it may well have been for him.

Perhaps then, to indulge Dr. Sowell, we provide reparations for the 100 years or more of Jim Crow policies and for the consequences of it that we still see today.

 

[bomberfox]

Martin Luther King Jr. fought hard for reparations but the ol “were done! Lets make money! End of history derp derp!” Attitude just washed over America like toxic sludge.

America promised 20 acres and a mule but never delivered. He came to cash in on that promise for all African Americans.

 

[GummyVitamins]

Are we really responsible for all the slavery around the world?

Valid counterargument to something he actually said. Congrats on this progress. That wasn't so hard.

 

[j brown's body]

Valid counterargument to something he actually said. Congrats on this progress. That wasn't so hard.

I said it on the last page:

"Sowell rationalizing slavery in this country by claiming that it happened elsewhere reminds me of my students who, when I ask them to stop talking in class, rationalize it by saying others are talking too. It's just not a rational argument. Try telling a cop giving you a speeding ticket that everyone else is speeding too and see what it gets you. Dude, guess what? You're still guilty."

 

[post]

What does all this have to do with slavery reparations?

What does anything have to do with anything? You recently posted linked quotes, at least twice, of an online commentator notorious for building his now impressively sized online following while standing on the corpse of Trayvon Martin while bashing Martin and his parents.
I've never experienced as many "logs sticking out of eyes" in reaction to denial of systemic racism, as well as personal denial of racism as I've observed since I became more active on this forum in early 2020.

G.O.P. is about identifying as a white male victim instead of as an empathetic human.

The True Story of Chicago's “Welfare Queen”​

https://www.chicagomag.com › city-life › may-2019 › t...
May 16, 2019 — Ronald Reagan infamously caricatured Linda Taylor as a welfare bogeyman. As a new book out this month reveals, however, her actual story is ...

Ronald Reagan and the 'welfare queen' - The Washington Post​

https://www.washingtonpost.com › history › 2019/05/21
May 21, 2019 — Throughout his political career, Ronald Reagan invoked the “woman in Chicago” who abused welfare. But Linda Taylor may have committed far ...

Bush Made Willie Horton an Issue in 1988, and the Racial ...​

https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics
Dec 3, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The tributes to former President George Bush in recent days have focused on his essential decency and civility, and his embrace ...

Jeb Bush doesn't understand the concept of “dog whistle ...​

https://newrepublic.com › minutes › jeb-bush-doesnt-u...
Dec 9, 2015 — "
Bush, speaking to MSNBC, continued his so far fruitless tirades against his bete noire Donald Trump, claiming that the GOP presidential front-runner, who recently called for barring all foreign Muslim visitors to the U.S., was throwing out “dog whistle proposals to prey on people’s fears.”
Say what you will about Trump, but he is not a dog whistler. Dog whistles are racially encoded messages that, on their surface, are just benign enough to give the speaker plausible deniability. Think of Richard Nixon’s appeals to “law and order” amidst political upheavals that included agitations for civil rights, or Mitt Romney’s vision of American society as divided between “makers and takers.”

What makes Trump different from other politicians is that he’s thrown away the dog whistle, made subtext text, and issued naked appeals to the worst prejudices of certain segments of the GOP base, who, much to the embarrassment of the GOP elite, apparently care nothing about the niceties of supply-side economics. That Bush is still struggling to understand this is one of the reasons he’s languishing in the polls..."

Link to cached page of January 23, 2016 article,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-governments-racial-bias-case-against-donald-trumps-company-and-how-he-fought-it/2016/01/23/fb90163e-bfbe-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html
Inside the government’s racial bias case against Donald Trump’s company, and how he fought it
"..The Trumps retained Roy Cohn, ... Cohn portrayed the Trumps as the victims and counter-sued the government, demanding it pay them $100 million for falsely accusing them of discrimination."

 

[GummyVitamins]

America promised 20 acres and a mule but never delivered. He came to cash in on that promise for all African Americans.

*40

 

[Mycroft]

What does anything have to do with anything?

The stuff you are flooding this thread with has absolutely nothing to do with the thread topic.

You are dismissed.

 

[jpevans]

You should watch the video again because there was a clear comprehension issue. He never "rationalized slavery" so let's stop lying about his position and try attacking what he did say versus what you apparently want him to have said. He said slavery is/was a global problem to the degree that if we were to give reparations to every descendent of slaves we'd have to give half of the world reparations. It's an unsustainable theory.

I'm no intellectual, but why would We have to give reparations to half the world population. Just to the descendent of American slaves.

 

[bomberfox]

I said it on the last page:

"Sowell rationalizing slavery in this country by claiming that it happened elsewhere reminds me of my students who, when I ask them to stop talking in class, rationalize it by saying others are talking too. It's just not a rational argument. Try telling a cop giving you a speeding ticket that everyone else is speeding too and see what it gets you. Dude, guess what? You're still guilty."

Hes a walking example of survivorship bias.

 

[GummyVitamins]

I'm no intellectual, but why would We have to give reparations to half the world population. Just to the descendent of American slaves.

There's no logistical way of doing that. How do you propose we identify them? He was bouncing around, but he started out by stating that slavery was a global evil that was part of humanity from the beginning of the human species. He continued (going off memory) to explain that academic tests provided around the world to poor people in countries outside of America showed that poor black immigrants scored higher than poor native whites. He used this as an example that the welfare state and victimization mentality we have in America has actually had inverse effects that reparations would only exacerbate.

 

[GummyVitamins]

Hes a walking example of survivorship bias.

Nobody alive in this country has survived slavery from our past, least of all Sowell.

 

[GummyVitamins]

Are we really responsible for all the slavery around the world?

He never said we were.

His argument that we are so massively guilty of crimes against so many people that it is best to just ignore it all together and let the perpetrator off the hook seems terribly absurd to me.

There are no perpetrators of slavery in America. For the love of God, stop lying already. It gets old. You're not responsible for what happened to my ancestors and neither is your neighbor.

 

[Ginza]

Ah yes, the old “you should be thankful for slavery” load of crap. It always takes a lot of historical ignorance to come out with that one

Not at all.

Award winning African American journalist, Keith Richburg, who has actually lived in Africa and knows what a basket case it is, says in his book "Out Of America, a Black man confronts Africa" that he is thankful that his ancestors ended up in America, as Africa is such a mess.

African-Americans are the richest black people in the world, thanks to their ancestors being taken there as slaves.

It would be more appropriate for African-Americans to pay reparations to whites for committing the most murders in the USA despite constituting only 13% of the US population.

 

[Ginza]

My ancestors were British. Britain was invaded by the Romans (Italians), Vikings (Scandinavians) and Normans (French). All three took land from the locals and enslaved them.

Where are my reparations from Italy, Scandinavia nd France?

 

[j brown's body]

Not at all.

Award winning African American journalist, Keith Richburg, who has actually lived in Africa and knows what a basket case it is, says in his book "Out Of America, a Black man confronts Africa" that he is thankful that his ancestors ended up in America, as Africa is such a mess.

African-Americans are the richest black people in the world, thanks to their ancestors being taken there as slaves.

It would be more appropriate for African-Americans to pay reparations to whites for committing the most murders in the USA despite constituting only 13% of the US population.

European imperialism did Africa no favors with its cultural and actual genocide.

It's not unusual to come across African immigrants who are considerably wealthier than many African-Americans.

Like whites, blacks kill mostly each other, if it makes you feel any better. Nobody else really gives a damn, unless it's to bash them.

 

[j brown's body]

He never said we were.


There are no perpetrators of slavery in America. For the love of God, stop lying already. It gets old. You're not responsible for what happened to my ancestors and neither is your neighbor.

If he didn't say we were, why use it in a reparations argument?

White racism, which propped up slavery here, continued with its economic injustice long after slavery, seen up to today.

 

[Kenshito]

Slavery was abolished 150-plus years ago and the "victims" and "offenders" of this case are all dead and gone, a large chunk of the African-American minority is composed of people who immigrated decades if not over a century after the abolition, and we never gave adequate reparations for the victims of Chinese and Asian Exclusion and Immigration bans and the shit amount we gave to the Japanese-Americans who were interned was nowhere near what they lost. That and it'd be unfairly taxing white trash and white descendants of people who weren't even involved with slavery, since the vast majority of people who immigrated to the US pre-1970 were Caucasian.

Better for the black community to just move on with their lives than try and get handouts that'll just increase unemployment rates through giving people including underage kids and people under 25 more money than what they know to do with, plus we know how well giving single parents inordinate amounts of welfare "benefited" the African-American community.

If anything I would argue Eastern European, Afghani, Southeast Asian refugees and asylumees are at a far greater disadvantage than blacks in America, we don't really give them much beyond the very bare minimum.

 

[smarcescens]

I have followed Sowell for years. He uses critical thinking, which promotes good judgement and insights on issues.

(note: Critical Thinking is not to be confused with Critical Race Theory )

same and I agree. he and Walter Williams were 2 of the best op ed writers I every spent time reading on a regular basis.

 

[Antiwar]

Sowell is a right-libertarian hack. I probably wouldn't have to watch very much of the video to show how and why.

 

[BahamaBob]

Slavery is not unique to America or Blacks. Ever race and nationality has been enslaved at one time or another. My ancestors were enslaved by the Romans. I have no ill feeling and have no need for respiration though. An untold number of people also came to America as indentured servants, which in itself is a form of slavery. If reparation is offered, shouldn't their ancestors get it as well?

In fact, slavery is still very much alive in Africa. There are still millions of slaves in Africa. That has been their culture since the beginning of their history.

One unique thing about American slaves. Unlike most enslaved people, they did not free themselves. They owe their freedom to Union Soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of which died freeing them. One would think if reparations were offered much of it should go to the ancestors of those who died freeing the slaves.

In reality, one has to show damage to earn reparation. Can the Blacks in America claim they are worse off than those who stayed in Africa? That is a definite no. Saying you earn less is not a reason. Whites earn less that Asians. Do they owe the Whites? The facts that thousands of Blacks are millionaires and billionaires prove that Blacks have the same earning capabilities as anyone else.

Another thing is our laws state a person is not responsible for debts or crimes incurred by family or others. Even if our ancestors had slaves, we cannot be held responsible.

All and all, this is nothing but an impossible pipe dream that liberals use to stir up the ignorant. Nothing but another promise that they can't deliver.

 

[RAMOSS]

I have followed Sowell for years. He uses critical thinking, which promotes good judgement and insights on issues.

(note: Critical Thinking is not to be confused with Critical Race Theory )

I find the exact opposite.

 

[Tigerace117]

Not at all.

Award winning African American journalist, Keith Richburg, who has actually lived in Africa and knows what a basket case it is, says in his book "Out Of America, a Black man confronts Africa" that he is thankful that his ancestors ended up in America, as Africa is such a mess.

African-Americans are the richest black people in the world, thanks to their ancestors being taken there as slaves.

It would be more appropriate for African-Americans to pay reparations to whites for committing the most murders in the USA despite constituting only 13% of the US population.

That’s a cool story bud. Unfortunately for you, one random guy’s opinion doesn’t change the fact that claiming people should be “grateful” for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade because “at least they got to come to America” is nonsensical.

But I’m not surprised an apologist for colonialism would come out with such drivel.

 

[Tigerace117]

Slavery is not unique to America or Blacks. Ever race and nationality has been enslaved at one time or another. My ancestors were enslaved by the Romans. I have no ill feeling and have no need for respiration though. An untold number of people also came to America as indentured servants, which in itself is a form of slavery. If reparation is offered, shouldn't their ancestors get it as well?

In fact, slavery is still very much alive in Africa. There are still millions of slaves in Africa. That has been their culture since the beginning of their history.

One unique thing about American slaves. Unlike most enslaved people, they did not free themselves. They owe their freedom to Union Soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of which died freeing them. One would think if reparations were offered much of it should go to the ancestors of those who died freeing the slaves.

In reality, one has to show damage to earn reparation. Can the Blacks in America claim they are worse off than those who stayed in Africa? That is a definite no. Saying you earn less is not a reason. Whites earn less that Asians. Do they owe the Whites? The facts that thousands of Blacks are millionaires and billionaires prove that Blacks have the same earning capabilities as anyone else.

Another thing is our laws state a person is not responsible for debts or crimes incurred by family or others. Even if our ancestors had slaves, we cannot be held responsible.

All and all, this is nothing but an impossible pipe dream that liberals use to stir up the ignorant. Nothing but another promise that they can't deliver.

Over a hundred and fifty thousand African Americans, many former slaves, served in the USCTs, so your claims are flat out wrong from the start.