Reparations?

[rgG]

I was watching the BBC news on PBS tonight. They had a guy on talking about Juneteenth, and he said that reparations are the next step that needs to happen.
I have no idea how reparations could be administered.
If all freed people were supposed to get 40 acres and a mule, how do you translate that into today's dollars?
How do you even begin to figure out who those people were and who their descendants are today?
It seems like reparations would be like those class action settlements where the lawyers and admin people get millions and the class gets pennies.
Please school me on what is being proposed, by the people campaigning for reparations, and how it would supposedly be distributed, as I can’t see how this would ever get sorted out by Congress.

[btfc]

Just heard on NPR:

“ Recent Polling Data Shows Why Nearly 2/3 Of Americans Oppose Cash Reparations “

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/18/100819631...eparations

[Lemon Drop]

Great topic for this week! Sorry I missed that segment. I think about this a lot.


There is a bill in the House Judiciary Comm., HR 40, that would establish a study of how reparations could be made.
It is not primarily focused on economic relief but on systemic reforms, from what I understand.

https://www.al.com/news/2021/04/slavery-...-vote.html

I can't remember which one, but there is a city in Alabama that voted to do economic reparations to people harmed by the town's past discriminatory housing policies. If every city acknowledged even just that, wow. That would be nationwide, not just the South.

An excellent essay on this topic from a few years back:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...ns/361631/

[hal]

I just can't imagine that it's possible, but sure... study the problem - maybe they can find a sol'n. But how does one distinguish btwn descendants of slaves vs black people that arrived after emancipation? Do decedents of slaves get an equal amount? What if one slave has 10 current decedents while another has 200?

Systemic reforms may be the only option.

otoh, there must surely be SOME explicit records for some people and some situations. Like Tulsa - that could be a special case. Much is known about who lost what there.

And then the funding... the USA is gonna pay for it and it's weird that black americans' tax dollars will be used for reparations.

There must be 1000s of little problems to overcome in doing this...

[rgG]

hal wrote:
I just can't imagine that it's possible, but sure... study the problem - maybe they can find a sol'n. But how does one distinguish btwn descendants of slaves vs black people that arrived after emancipation? Do decedents of slaves get an equal amount? What if one slave has 10 current decedents while another has 200?

Systemic reforms may be the only option.

otoh, there must surely be SOME explicit records for some people and some situations. Like Tulsa - that could be a special case. Much is known about who lost what there.

And then the funding... the USA is gonna pay for it and it's weird that black americans' tax dollars will be used for reparations.

There must be 1000s of little problems to overcome in doing this...

Those are all questions I had, too.
I think an instance like Tulsa, would be far easier to do and might be possible.

[DeusxMac]

There's a vast gulf between what's high-mindedly desired and what's realistically possible.

[vision63]

This was a few days ago. There is no way this country is going to provide any kind of actual remedy that is race specific. I hope they can get this Black farmer deal done. It's relatively speaking, just pennies.

FEDERAL JUDGE PAUSES $4 BILLION FEDERAL RELIEF PROGRAM FOR BLACK FARMERS AS WHITE FARMERS CRY DISCRIMINATION

https://www.blackenterprise.com/federal-...imination/

[Sarcany]

Ummmm...

Native Americans should be in the Reparations conversation

https://journojoshua.medium.com/native-a...a30e9c4b2d

[mattkime]

DeusxMac wrote:
There's a vast gulf between what's high-mindedly desired and what's realistically possible.

This is where I'm at.

[rgG]

Sarcany wrote:
Ummmm...

Native Americans should be in the Reparations conversation

https://journojoshua.medium.com/native-a...a30e9c4b2d

The guy who was talking on the BBC America news tonight said that the Native Americans had received land, as an example of other groups that had already received reparations. He also mentioned reparations paid to interred Japanese Americans. I thought the idea that Native Americans had received reparations was an unusual interpretation of American history, to say the least.