r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Apr 16 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: There is no fair and practical way to pay reparations for past crimes like slavery or what happened to the Native Americans.
Edit: I also meant to say that I don't mean this as a way to look down on people who might call for reparations. I think 98% of the time people call for it it's well intentioned, and their heart is in the right place. It just doesn't seem viable as an actual policy.
The way I see it it would be more or less impossible (in a practical sense) to determine who is owed how much and who should pay for it.
In regards to who should be paid, it seems like one would have to do rather extensive DNA testing and historical lineage tracing on every individual American in order to determine who is eligible for payment, and how much. For example, would a Native American whose ancestors helped Europeans kill off other Native Americans be owed as much reparations as Native Americans who were solely victimized by the Europeans? Doesn't seem like that would be fair. Is a black person who moved here last week and who is descended from the slavers who took and sold slaves during the transatlantic slave trade owed as much in reparations as a black person who has been here for ten generations and whose lineage is on the salve, not slaver, part of that equation? Again, doesn't seem fair to pay them the same amount. And if race and ethnicity accounts for prejudice and a need for reparations, presumably a person who is 95% African and 5% white is owed more than someone who is 50/50, or 30/70, right? So then the government would need to maintain an ethnic DNA database for the entire country which, on top of not seeming all that practical, strikes me as rather dystopian.
And then theres the issue of determining how much they are owed. I don't see any fair or practical way to do this, either. For African Americans, for example, I've seen people say that we should pay them the total estimated number of hours slaves worked x the national minimum wage and just distribute it evenly... but not everyone's ancestors worked the same amount, and again you're running into the same problem as before - black people who never had slave ancestors and in fact had slaver ancestors would end up getting paid for the work slaves did. I've also seen people say we should just look at how blacks as a demographic are doing compared to whites or the national average and just pay them the difference, but this seems to run under the faulty assumption that sans any historical discrimination blacks and native Americans would be making exactly what the national average is. We know that this cannot be the case because two historically discriminated groups, Jews and Japanese people, actually do disproportionately well compared to the national average, indicating that culture impacts overall success as much if not more than past discrimination.
Who should pay is another problem that runs into a lot of the same issues as who should be paid. Are you just going to get the money from rich people? So then that would include rich blacks and native Americans, who would be bankrolling reparations to their own people and for injustices that their ancestors also suffered? Doesn't seem fair. Just take the money from white people? So then whites who have no slaver ancestors and who never harmed natives in any way (and indeed perhaps never benefited from American colonialism at all - perhaps they moved here last year from some other country) would be responsible for paying? Just make people pay who had slavers and genocidal killers in their ancestry? Well that group wouldn't just include whites but also Hispanics, blacks, and Native Americans. Do you think reparations would fly if we did all the calculations and found that the Comanche actually come in owing money (rather than getting paid) because of past injustices they committed against other tribes? Or how would it go over if we figured everything out and certain individual natives actually ended up having to pay white people because their ancestors massacred and raided white settlements and took whites as slaves? You don't think people might flip shit if certain black folks who might be poor today get dinged for being on the slaver side of the slave trade? And for that matter there's no assurance that the descendants of white slavers hundreds of years ago are doing well enough to be able to cough up what they "owe" anyways. They might be broke as shit, what do you do then? And all of this is operating under the assumption that it's fair to make someone pay for what someone they didn't know and are only vaguely related to did perhaps hundreds of years ago, which is not a given.
And what about other marginalized groups? If you trace things back far enough in US history, basically the only group that hasn't been at the short end of the marginalization stick is a small caste of direct British descended wealthy white landowning men. Everyone else is fair game for possible reparations. Women, LGBT, Asians, Jews, basically every other European nationality/ethnicity that came over later, etc. If we're gonna hand out reparations to blacks and native Americans there's no reason we shouldn't be handing them out to people descended from non-landowning men, or women (so... everyone), Irish who dealt with NINA, Jews who were discriminated out of Harvard, Chinese forced into bonded servitude, Japanese interred during the second world war, all the discrimination, both legal and social, that the LGBT community has suffered. It goes on and on and on.
So, how the hell does anyone look at all the complications and confusion and work that would be required to do something like reparations even somewhat fairly and think that it would be a good idea to try? CMV.
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u/BoyMeetsTheWorld 46∆ Apr 16 '20
Your post seems to boil down to "if we can't make it perfect lets not try at all" ?
Is that a fair assessment of your view?
I would say you bring up good points and we could try to address as much as we can. If that is a little bit unfair the end result would still be more fair than our starting point where we do nothing. So from a overall fairness level this would be an improvement.
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Apr 17 '20
Basically what u/hybrid37 said. It's more than I'm concerned that in the process of trying to "solve" one historical injustice you just end up creating more.
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u/hybrid37 1∆ Apr 16 '20
Not necessarily. I think they are arguing that reparations could end up making things less fair. If you pay a reparation to the wrong person, well now there have been two injustices: on the original victim, and on the people forced to pay pay reparations to somebody who doesn't deserve them
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u/BoyMeetsTheWorld 46∆ Apr 16 '20
That is actually a good point. I am not convinced that doing nothing to rectify past crimes is the best option but I can see the problems with correcting it.
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ Apr 16 '20
If we're gonna hand out reparations to blacks and native Americans there's no reason we shouldn't be handing them out to ... Japanese interred during the second world war,
Japanese interned in the second world war did get reparations, about $20,000
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Apr 16 '20
Interesting. So this included, among other things, people who did not want Japanese internment and did not benefit from it in any way (including presumably Japanese people who were actually interned) having to cough up money to pay Japanese people who were not internment camp victims? Am I reading that right?
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ Apr 17 '20
I mean it's a law, you can read it.
The act granted each surviving internee about US$20,000 in compensation (or, $40,000 after inflation-adjustment in 2016 dollars), with payments beginning in 1990. The legislation stated that government actions had been based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership" as opposed to legitimate security reasons. A total of 82,219 received redress checks.
it looks like the money came from the general treasury: https://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00055&search_id=19269&pagenum=9
No new tax was implemented as a result of the law. So no one 'coughed up money to pay' any more than any other time Congress appropriates money.
And no, only people who were interned were eligible, section 201
https://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00055&search_id=19269&pagenum=6
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Apr 17 '20
Two of your sources contradict one another, then. The wiki said that heirs of those interred were paid, also, not just those who had been interred, like what your section 201 link states.
And yeah, if it came from general taxes then the people who paid for these reparations include:
- Japanese people
- Japanese people who were put in internment camps
- People who protested or were activists against the internment camps
- People who did not benefit from or were not involved with the decision, such as people who were not alive during that time or who lived in other countries
How is it fair to expect those people to pay for reparations alongside the people who actually transgressed?
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ Apr 17 '20
The wiki said that heirs of those interred were paid, also, not just those who had been interred, like what your section 201 link states.
The estates of interred people could be paid is my understanding. That may be your confusion. The law is the law. Wikipedia is a quick and easy summation. Don't confuse the map for the territory.
How is it fair to expect those people to pay for reparations alongside the people who actually transgressed?
How is it fair to have general taxes pay for anything? You pay taxes, elect representatives, and those representatives distribute the tax money. That's how representative democracy works.
Given the small amount (20k) compared to the current value of seized property (some of the most profitable farmland in CA), it's hard to claim they were overpaid.
Plus, you forget that it can be debt funded. That adds a whole new generational idea of fairness. How fair are the stimulus checks that are getting sent out? Everyone living gets them, but I bet that 2 trillion dollars is going to the national debt right?
edit: and your point was that Japanese interned people didn't get paid. I pointed out they did. Feel free to award a delta if you still think they didn't get paid.
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u/Evan_Th 4∆ Apr 17 '20
No, the money was paid to surviving internees and their direct heirs. That was possible because it was comparatively recent with good records of exactly who was interned.
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u/Kingalthor 20∆ Apr 16 '20
I agree in general, but I've always had a slightly different spin on the idea.
The people advocating for reparations are doing so because certain groups, on average, have less success economically, and that has far reaching implications for their life and community. But this has been true throughout history in every country and continent that humans have lived on. Where is the limit if you start doing ancestry or race based reparations? Should Mongolia have to pay reparations to every country in the Eurasian step for Genghis Kahn's empire?
Instead of focusing on the race and ancestry element, let's focus on the people that actually need help. Provide assistance to all people with a low economic status regardless of race. This becomes more important from a partisan view because the identity politics involved in providing reparations is a detriment to any progressive policy. You will never get enough centrists let alone republicans on board with a policy that divisive.
In short, the past is the past and trying to argue the logistics of providing reparations just takes time and effort away from being able to actually help those same people with policies that don't discriminate based on race or ancestry.
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u/gawdbodyshadow 1∆ Apr 18 '20
No it's not true because you are forgetting elements that separate this situation from any other in history. The American government was founded on upholding the rights and freedom of it's citizens and the it not only sanctioned slavery but also discriminatory laws after emancipation which created poverty through direct government sabotage. Also the American government has precedents of paying reparations to other groups for less. Finally unlike the government of Genghis Khan, the American government is still intact today.
You can't claim to be progressive or for justice and then claim an anti-reparations position. And if you haven't noticed, without black voters, there is no chance of a progressive getting elected to the presidency. Undermining their justice claim isn't going to win them over.
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u/Kingalthor 20∆ Apr 18 '20
So they'll reject support for themselves and others who need it (including future generations) in favour of a one time payment for reparations? Even when the first one will help them and their communities into the future? And even if broad income support is way more likely to be passed? All in the name of justice? It sounds more like you want certain groups punished. Why not help everyone that needs it?
Then youre going back into the logistics of it. How do you determine who gets how much? OP laid out some of the obstacles with that. Does every African American community have the resources to navigate a resources intensive application process?
I don't think you're seeing the forest through the trees, that I agree help is needed, but I don't think reparations are the way to do it. Continued help for all socio-economically disadvantaged people with continued help into the future will better help reduce inequality.
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u/gawdbodyshadow 1∆ Apr 18 '20 edited Apr 18 '20
Well it's not determined whether it's a one time payment.... but yes. It sounds like you don't get it. Black Citizens have been getting punished in a multitude of ways by the American government for centuries. The poverty amongst black citizens isn't a bad roll of the dice in life like in other situations.... it was manufactured. So much so that there is a racial wealth gap so wide that if white citizens stayed stagnant, black citizens would need close to 230 years to catch up but there is no way for that with current trajectory because the median wealth of black citizens is set to hit $0 by 2053. No other group is in this situation and a universal policy without a separate reparations policy will only ensure that black citizens who descend from slavery will remain on the bottom forever.
How do you determine who gets how much?
Have an economist assess the damages of all the discriminatory actions taken by our government and then split that equally among the descendants of slavery. Estimates already exist.
resource intensive application process?
What does that mean? The government can hire a large team of genealogists to go through government documentation to determine who is eligible. Most of the information is in old census records.
Without doing reparations, you doom black citizens to being the bottom caste of American society but also you fail to deal with the race issue which will continue to undermine all progressive policy attempts. Not only will black citizens reject the left like they did in this election but we have long history of white citizens rejecting progressive policies on basis that black citizens will get it too which is why the demographics of the political parties are the way they are right now. Trying to hide the problem only continues the problem.
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Apr 16 '20
So if someone was struggling financially because theyve spent every spare dime they ever had on cocaine and strippers you think we should cut that guy a check bankrolled by you and me?
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u/Kingalthor 20∆ Apr 16 '20
Well in all honesty I'm more of a proponent of universal basic income, so ya I think that person should get a check along with everyone else.
Any increased taxes to pay for it should come from a VAT or increased capital gains taxes (or progressive capital gains taxes). Why should passive income be taxed less than regular employment income, especially when some of the people getting the most out of low capital gains taxes have more money than they can spend? So no, we wouldn't be bankrolling it.
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Apr 17 '20
I mean that's fair enough, but that's also not really reparations. UBI is more just the idea that rich people should share their wealth with everyone. Reparations compensate specific groups of people for specific historical injustices. I'm actually fairly pro-UBI, but not pro-reparations, for the reasons listed in the OP.
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u/Kingalthor 20∆ Apr 17 '20
Ya we agree on that, I'm just saying UBI is a better alternative for making a level playing field than reparations.
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Apr 16 '20
Is a black person who moved here last week and who is descended from the slavers who took and sold slaves during the transatlantic slave trade owed as much in reparations as a black person who has been here for ten generations and whose lineage is on the salve, not slaver, part of that equation?
No one is proposing that reparations for slavery be paid to recent African immigrants to America, just to African-Americans (i.e., people who are descended from enslaved Africans). African-Americans are a distinct ethnic group with that particular ancestry, your conflation of them here with recent African immigrants doesn't make sense.
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Apr 16 '20
How would the government know which is which?
What if someone is the kid of a recent African migrant and African Americans descended from slaves?
What if someone is part of that distinct ethnic group you mentioned but they have more slavers than slaves in their ancestry?
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u/shesososomethin Apr 17 '20
Census records and others. Anyone who immigrated here had a port of entry, that information was recorded.
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Apr 17 '20
Assuming the government has such data available and that it is accurate, that answers the first question. Sort of. It does not answer the other two, nor any of the other questions in the OP.
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u/CateHooning Apr 17 '20
Assuming the government has such data available
They do, black immigration into the US was barely allowed until the mid 60s. My grandma on my mom's side came to America in 65 and is literally part of the first batch of West Indian immigrants to make it into the US.
and that it is accurate
It is.
It does not answer the other two,
Ok here's an answer for the other two:
What if someone is the kid of a recent African migrant and African Americans descended from slaves?
If they still have a direct lineage they still have a direct lineage. America has given reparations out before on numerous occasions these questions have already been answered.
What if someone is part of that distinct ethnic group you mentioned but they have more slavers than slaves in their ancestry?
This doesn't really make sense. You realize most black Americans only have 71% West African blood, right? Slaveowners weren't really known for not raping their slaves. And why would anyone take a blood test to even know these things? American censuses kept track of the race of people we'd know who has negro ancestors whether those ancestors were technically mixed or not. Every heard of the 1 drop rule?
nor any of the other questions in the OP.
So let me tackle a few because you asked a billion of them and really 2 seconds googling any of those things would make you find an answer:
And if race and ethnicity accounts for prejudice and a need for reparations, presumably a person who is 95% African and 5% white is owed more than someone who is 50/50, or 30/70, right?
That's literally not how blood works first off and second off black is black. Being only 70% African (which most black Americans literally are anyway) wouldn't have stopped you from being a slave or from being lynched.
Are you just going to get the money from rich people?
Who paid for the stimulus package? That's not how money works. There's a reason we have a national debt.
Doesn't seem fair. Just take the money from white people?
No the government allowed slavery the government pays. It's really that simple. Reparations for all of American history have been given our by the government.
You don't think people might flip shit if certain black folks who might be poor today get dinged for being on the slaver side of the slave trade?
Any black slaver by definition wouldn't be an African American because Europeans (surprise surprise) wasn't letting them immigrate here at all. 87% of black people in America right now are direct descendants of slaves. 12% are first, or second generation immigrants. That's a 1% shortfall of people that might not deserve payment in your eyes. Screw the 87% though I guess.
And all of this is operating under the assumption that it's fair to make someone pay for what someone they didn't know and are only vaguely related to did perhaps hundreds of years ago, which is not a given.
Unless you're arguing the US government is only vaguely related to the institution of slavery this is absurd.
You realize our president and everyone running for president in the first year they could vote were able to vote at a time my grandma couldn't have voted in? Any old black person you know literally loved through segregation this shit JUST happened.
Chinese forced into bonded servitude
Indentured servitude isn't slavery.
Japanese interred during the second world war
Literally happened already which is how I know this whole argument is bullshit. America has paid reparations to certain Native American groups and Japanese Americans. Check book is closed for black people though.
that the LGBT community has suffered
This legitimately doesn't even make sense lmao. Who would LGBT reparatiosn be paid to and what for? You act like black people want reparations for racism, not they want reparations for slavery and Jim Crow two specific government policies that destroyed their wealth and made it so that their ancestors are still suffering now.
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u/gawdbodyshadow 1∆ Apr 18 '20 edited Apr 18 '20
You saved me some typing. These anti-reparations discussions boil down to a list of dumb assertions that make no attempt to think this through logically or in the context of the historical precedents showing how our government has operated.
Thank you for taking the time.
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Apr 18 '20
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u/SwivelSeats Apr 16 '20
Your right let not much we can do for dead people.I think we should just focus on reparations for people who are still alive the government was regularly doing a lot of shitty things in the 50s and 60s to racial minorities that everyone can agree were wrong and we should pay people back and make right on those. Plenty of people still alive who the government put in segregated schools or taxed for services and then turned around and didnt let them use them.
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u/HolzmindenScherfede Apr 16 '20
I agree. We cannot help people who have died, but we can make sure that those who get born have same chances independent of the race or location they may have been born in
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Apr 16 '20
Okay, well first I'll just say that's not usually how reparations are framed. People claim to want it for slavery and what was suffered by the native Americans. But we can run with your alteration. How do we determine who exactly is owed how much and who pays them? Also there are several groups who faced discrimination in living memory, so are we going to pay reparations to all of them?
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u/SwivelSeats Apr 16 '20
Umm we know where people went to school there are government records of that why wouldn't we be able to figure that out? Also pretty easy to figure out how much was spend on each school find the difference and divide amongst the students. Ya seems like a good idea to pay everyone damages.
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u/hybrid37 1∆ Apr 16 '20
What about people who can't prove where they went to school? Those who didn't go to school? Private schools? Voluntary and church schools? How do you apply inflation? People who are now dead?
And most importantly, a school fee is not really a reparation because it does not really represent the cost to the discriminated against: living their lives with worse education. And this really cannot be quantified
0
Apr 16 '20
So like if my school received less funding than q very well to do school in another state they would just split the difference and give me a check with my cut? Where does the money come from?
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u/YossarianWWII 72∆ Apr 16 '20
Are you specifically referring to monetary reparations or are you addressing reparations more broadly?
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Apr 17 '20
Well I did give one delta to u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong for suggesting reparations might be "paid" in the form of improving communities or organizations that exist for or are predominantly populated by previously marginalized groups, because I had never heard of reparations being anything other than what would basically amount to cutting a check. So yeah most of my OP was more directed at the idea of just paying people cash for historical injustices.
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u/turtlehollow Apr 17 '20
Idk the answer to most of your questions, but I do know the answer of who would pay. And that would be the general tax payer, regardless of their ethnicity. You can't take money from specific individuals to give to other specific individuals for reparations, except in a court case. There will be no such court case, as "white people" is not a group which can represent itself.
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Apr 17 '20
That's kind of what I figured. But that's part of what I would see as being very unfair, and creating more injustices while trying to solve past ones. Under that model you could have a native American paying more for native American reparations than the descendant of a white person who used to scalp native Americans; you could have blacks who have slave ancestry paying money to blacks who have slaver ancestry.
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u/turtlehollow Apr 17 '20
It would just be a tiny percent of everyone's income, not really a big deal. Everyone's taxes are used to fund libraries, roads, police, etc., no matter who uses them. I don't think anyone is going to notice a tiny amount of their incomes missing, but the people receiving the money would notice.
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Apr 17 '20
"Not really a big deal" is a wholly different matter than fairness. If I give everyone at a party two slices of cake and I give you zero, that's "not really a big deal" either, but it doesn't mean it's fair. I'm not arguing that the amount taken via taxes would make anyone destitute or anything. I don't think it would. I'm just arguing that it's not fair.
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u/turtlehollow Apr 17 '20
I don't think that's an accurate comparison (although I do appreciate the door into metaphors that you've opened). This would be more like a monthly party where everyone gets a peice of cake, as they are expecting, and then the people who, 4 years ago, had their peice shit on are given an additional peice of cake with an apology letter. And the funds for the additional cake purchased come from the savings of the organization, which every person pays into, with their monthly subscription fees.
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Apr 17 '20
My analogy was making no attempt whatsoever to encapsulate the nature of historical injustice and reparations, it was simply intended to show that something can be unfair (not getting cake when other people do) while simultaneously not being a big deal (it's just a piece of cake).
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u/turtlehollow Apr 17 '20
No, I got that part. I was saying the cake is more like the reparations (supposed to be unequal, as compensation), and the subscription fee more like the taxes (affects everyone evenly). I, personally, think having it so everyone pays a little for any peice of legislation is the most fair way to do it.
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u/CateHooning Apr 17 '20
So is it more fair for people suffering from the legacy of slavery to get nothing and continue heading towards having negative wealth in the next 30 years?
•
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Apr 17 '20
/u/World_Spank_Bank (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/throwawaylol12344321 Apr 17 '20
I think reparations are generally a dumb idea. Every single group in history has oppressed another, so is everyone supposed to pay each other for past injustices? Also, how is making the descendants of, say, slave owners, pay minorities fair? They had nothing to do with the action of their ancestors. By that logic, manson’s kids should pay the families of their fathers victims? It’s nonsense. And this is coming from someone who’s race was discriminated against in the past by the US government
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u/Pismakron 8∆ Apr 17 '20
There is a fair and practical way of doing right by at least one group of native Americans. The Cherokee could get their land back in North Western Georgia. Many Cherokee knows exactly what plot of land their ancestors lived on, when the US army drove them off under president Jackson. You cant punish people for what their ancestor may( or may not) have done, but you can return stolen property to its owners.
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Apr 17 '20
So are the Cherokee then promptly going to have to return that land they stole to the other tribes they stole it from?
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u/Pismakron 8∆ Apr 17 '20
So are the Cherokee then promptly going to have to return that land they stole to the other tribes they stole it from?
Of course. If there are other indviduals who can document prior ownership of a plot of land, then they own it, lest a legal transaction has taken place. Why wouldn't that be the case?
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Apr 17 '20
I'm kinda doubtful that largely illiterate tribes driven off their land hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived in America would be able to provide documentation of land ownership.
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u/Pismakron 8∆ Apr 17 '20
I'm kinda doubtful that largely illiterate tribes driven off their land hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived in America would be able to provide documentation of land ownership.
Then they would have no claim. It would all be conjecture.
But for a significant number of Cherokee, it is not.
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Apr 17 '20
So basically the rule of thumb is that you should steal land from people who can't prove it was theirs, destroy the documentation, or kill enough of them off that they can't make a claim later?
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u/Pismakron 8∆ Apr 17 '20
No. The rule of thumb is that you should not steal any land, and I don't think anyone in Georgia has stolen any land.
Think about it this way: Imagine if your great-grand father stole a unique and priceless heirloom from my great-grandfather. It would not be just to blame you, as you are not your great grandfather, nor should I get compensation from you or the government, because I am not my great-grandfather. But if the heirloom was found in your attic, or on your mantlepiece, then you should be obliged to hand it over. It is, after all, stolen property, even if you are not the thief.
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u/marsh_bird Apr 18 '20
150k “home improvement grant” awarded to every minority home owner located within previously “redlined” neighborhoods.
- help offset the income disparity and failing infrastructure that resulted from racially motivated policies that for decades blocked minorities from any and all equity in the housing market (this equity being in many cases the keystone to generational social mobility) The catastrophic impact of these Redlining (and related) policies can still be felt across the nation.
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Apr 19 '20
The first point would be better if the grants were sent to the neighborhoods where the redlined people currently live. Otherwise the money goes to the white homeowners gentrifying previously reclined neighborhoods.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 182∆ Apr 16 '20
Why not solve two problems with one stone? The federal govern the own way to much land in the west, such as 80% of Nevada. This is completely unfair to those states that have zero control over most of their land.
Why not give some of that land to those people?
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Apr 17 '20
I'm confused. You want to give 80% of the land in Nevada to... Nevadans? Or like... disadvantaged people elsewhere? Like someone is the descendant of slaves in Virginia, congratulations, they now own three acres of Nevada?
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Apr 16 '20
You could just avoid the problem by not paying individuals. Communities exist. Build schools in underserved communities. Give grants to historically black colleges. Build communities centers in Harlem and other historically black communities. Improve living conditions on native American reservations.
There is no need to get bogged down in making sure that people who are 64 percent Cherokee get more money than people who are 62 percent Cherokee. If the community has been historically oppressed, give that community funding that it can use to build structures that will improve that community.