http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7406&eeid=6495997&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=0&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+ne+topnews&ck=

@Siss – you don’t want it with me. Period. Let’s try to remain civil, or at least not stoop to “kindergarten” name calling.

@NQuest and Jenni – You make my point quite nicely and matter of factly. Facts and all. I thank you. –I will say that I’m not all that opposed to direct reperations. My only problem is that there is not the infrastructure in the black community to ensure the money goes its necessary rounds throughout a black economy before circulating out again. That’s my only opposition to direct reparations. And I like the idea of investing in urban communities for the benefit of the current dwellers.
———
Whatever anyone’s personal feelings as regards taking away their land without compensation, the fact is redistributing wealth is fairly simple. And besides, let’s think our way through this. If descedents of slaves and those who suffered under the terror and real enslavement of neo-slavery (Huh, Mark? You like that?) were given just compensation, cause again, money gains compound interests, African Americans and Native Americans would be able to buy the land at cost.

And if we are going to boil this down to the most simplistic terms – Say my great-grandfather stole your great-grandfather’s gold pocket watch, which he had inherited from his great-grandfather, in 1890. Just because the watch has been in my family for generations, does that make the watch any less yours?

I’m sure you wouldn’t raise the issue of statute of limitations, but for the analogy, I could. However in reality, slavery, genocide, mass murder, etc and so one, are crimes against humanity and as such, have no legal statute of limitations. For example, people who had property, like art, stolen by the Nazis can get the goods back if they can prove it was theirs and was stolen by the Nazis.

“Precisely,” you say, “You have to prove, x-y-z.” With more and more geneaological sites and geneaologists, proven who is and who isn’t descended from slaves wouldn’t be impossible. And if you wanna make it real easy, lets just count out all the African Americans with European surnames. And there are living survivors of neo-slavery.

Really, Siss. If you wanna engage in a thoughtful exchange of ideas, I’m your woman. But if all you can do is challenge my ideas without bringing any to the table, you don’t want it with me.

There are so many examples, including these in modern times, it’s hard to keep track. And while “white flight” represent the “luxury of choice that people have to move when/where ever they please,” it is these very racist policies that institutionalized the relationship between race and housing values/”bad” communities. So, even with the Fair Housing Act, etc., white people use a racial calculus that continues to recreate residential/educational segregation, and from which people of color continue to suffer unjust impoverishment (i.e. from reduced property values and thus reduced home equity and wealth, and thus reduced educational and other infrastructure and local tax bases affect all these, among other related consequences). We should not be so quick to wipe our hands of responsibility for these historical and continuing consequences, but as Nquest said, we live in a society structured around our white privilege that honors our “no way,” “can’t be done,” “I’m not to blame” attitude.

Compensation like this and others (GI, SSI) should have been directed to the person wronged

So that’s it? Since compensation for those wronged didn’t happen in some mythical time period when it “should” have happened, that’s it?

Regarding Jenni’s statement, she did not mention direct transfer of land, No1Kstate did. Jenni referenced how the government was “socialist” when it came to directly giving land to Whites via the Homestead Act (some 160 acres in a lot of cases vs. the 40 acres often mentioned in reparations circles) AND the very recent/living history of the GI Bill and the creation of the suburbs. Regarding the latter, Jenni’s point is that the government found a way to not only make a massive investment into White communities but those investments often came at the expense, detriment or exclusion of people of color who are LIVING today — communities of color that are suffering today from those government decisions that were made in the recent/living past.

So Jenni suggested duplicating those practices to the advantage vs. disadvantage of communities of color. There was no mention of taking “the land you paid for” and what you apparently fail to recognize is that your situation is not unique in terms of having paid for the land. The only exception is you have the luxury of having a society that honors your “no way” attitude… That was not the case for Native Americans, not the case for African Americans who were Torn From The Land or any of the communities of color that had interstate highway, etc. built in or around their communities…

To say rectifying this is socialist is to suggest that white wealth was earned in a just system, which of course it wasn’t and hasn’t been. The socialism cry is a rhetorical strategy to make reparations or any other just programming look illegitimate. You are write that it poses an obstacle, but that’s no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Other reparative strategies could include massive reinvestments in impoverished communities of color, massive educational investments to remedy to the vast disparities in education, policies that encourage a shift in whites’ racial logic, e.g., that change the “payoff” whites get for fleeing communities of color, etc., to a racial logic that would support integration, tax remedies that would compensate those black Americans who were denied GI benefits or Social Security benefits because of the ways those programs were racially administered in discriminatory ways. I mean, c’mon – we have some of the smartest minds in the world – we can create unbelieveable technology and we can’t figure out a way to acheive a just outcome? We can’t even muster the political will to convene a governmental collective to investigate the issue (and good luck to Obama who, as a black man, would bear the weight of the world should he try to call for such a committee – can you imagine the outrage) – of course the stopgap is that somehwere deep down most people KNOW that we would have to do something to repair the breach, and most whites and people in power just won’t muster the political will. But justice will not wait forever . . .