It’s so weird how some people always seem to take any attempt at making amends or rectifying past wrongs as some sort of personal attack on them and their lives.
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Do they know you think so little of them and their marriage? Or maybe it’s marriage in general.
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I’m pretty sure no one is proposing an Adopt a Descendant of a Slave program. In fact, I don’t think Sally Struthers is involved in this planning at all…
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Word.
As a biracial woman and the literal by-product of such a union, most of the interracial couples I’ve ever known were together because they actually, y’know, LOVED one another.
⊙_ʘ
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tl;dr but based on the first few paragraphs, it seems as if you’re missing the point completely. It doesn’t matter if you, your family, or ancestors are or aren’t directly responsible for hundreds of years of systematic and State-sponsored discrimination and oppression. You (assuming you’re a white person) still have built-in advantages whether you realize it or not. That doesn’t make you a racist or bad person, but it can give you blinders.
Frankly, these discussions about reparations, policies, and remedies are not about you (or me for that matter). But that doesn’t mean these aren’t discussions worth having.
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Come you ranks of labor, come you union core
And see if you remember the struggles of before
When you were standing helpless on the outside of the door
And you started building links
On the chain, on the chain
And you started building links
On the chain
When the police on the horses were waiting on demand
Riding through the strike with the pistols in their hands
Swinging at the skulls of many a union man
As you built one more link
On the chain, on the chain
As you built one more link
On the chain
Then the army of the fascists tried to put you on the run
But the army of the union, they did what could be done
Oh, the power of the factory was greater than the gun
As you built one more link
On the chain, on the chain
As you built one more link
On the chain
And then in 1954, decisions finally made
Oh, the black man was a rising fast, racing from the shade
And your union took no stand and your union was betrayed
As you lost yourself a link
On the chain, on the chain
As you lost yourself a link
On the chain
And then there came the boycotts and then the freedom rides
And forgetting what you stood for, you tried to block the tide
Oh, the automation bosses were laughing on the side
As they watched you lose your link
On the chain, on the chain
As they watched you lose your link
On the chain
You know when they block your trucks boys by laying on the road
All that they are doing is all that you have showed
That you gotta strike, you gotta fight to get what you are owed
When you’re building all your links
On the chain, on the chain
When you’re building all your links
On the chain
And the man who tries to tell you that they’ll take your job away
He’s the same man who was scabbing hard just the other day
And your union’s not a union till he’s thrown out of the way
And he’s choking on your links
Of the chain, of the chain
And he’s choking on your links
Of the chain
For now the times are telling you the times are rolling on
And you’re fighting for the same thing, the jobs that will be gone
Now it’s only fair to ask your boys, which side are you on?
As you’re building all your links
On the chain, on the chain
As you’re building all your links
On the chain
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I am using my wonky cellphone with a hope and a prayer…hopefully this’ll all understandable. 
Mindysan33
JBird:
It sounds like an excellent way to divide and conquer by the 1%.
Mindysan33:
No. Again, we can do both. To ignore the issue of race and how it compounds class issues.
On paper we can. Historically, when they could not kill everyone fast enough, the rich elites used racism to divide Americans into separate groups for the easier control. Give the useful idiots of the poor, working, and middle classes as well as the leadership of the Native Americans to work against each other. Natives against Black against White against Slaves against Freedmen against Freeborn. Just murder the few influential leaders of any group who saw the problem or who actually believed in equality and problem solved for a while. It has worked for over three hundred and fifty years. And bringing up reparations right now as socialism is becoming credible again is yet another example. Just like how the unions were weakened by splitting off the socialist and then blacks for easy disposal.
JBird:
but please think about those who have nothing, and then ask yourself why they need to get at the back of the line.
It’s absurd to believe this is the case.
*Why? It has happened before. I am fuvking poor. Those in power don’t want to give it up. If it means bribing some fools so that alliances are broken, they will do it. *
JBird:
I have seen homeless families.
Do you imagine that this is only white people or predominately white people?
*How often are poor whites, who doconstitute the single largest group of poor people, mentioned? Like the large part of the working class that consists of POC, it’s like they don’t exist. Or for that matter the Native Americans who are the single most abused, neglected, impoverished group of Americans with suicide, murder, and rape stats that are horrifying.
JBird:
As a poor person myself trying to remained housed talking about my “white privilege” is a sick joke.
Mindysan33:
Try saying that to the parents of all the black children shot by the cops…
JBird:
Facile remarks add nothing to the conversation. Dying by exposure or by the bullet is still dying. Also we starting with the victim olympics… who has suffered more? I really don’t care all that much when children are living on the damn streets to be concerned with only a subset of the abused and the dead. We are all the same people. Whatever anyone else thinks. Anyways, being white only slows the police down as too many people of all races often suffering lead poisoning. For that matter, I was referring to the economic privileges, which are very real, but more insults than reality to far too many people. You can pay the rent or buy food with it.
Eventually, the decision will have to be made. IJustice for all or reparations for a few. At the very least the rot, the corruption destroying our society and is being used by the powerful to crush both me and you will have to be removed. If reparations did happen before then the recipients will have taken from them. Do not think otherwise. Lynchings were very often done to destroy successful economic rivals after all. Just as targeted bribes were used to split people up.
JBird:
Finally, What the Flying Fudge is with this white people crap?
Mindysan33:
History?
JBird:
History is full of examples of labeling very large groups of people as “They,” the evil, no good, very bad, monolithic those people. So I asked again. Hopefully, more clearly, why the Flying Fudge is a group two hundred million large being treated as one monolithic group? And no, just because some earlier monsters did so for personal gain does not make it okay to do it again. Unless that group is some sort of hive mind?
“Why should we bother instituting a judicial system to deal with murder? Nobody in my family has ever murdered. It would be unfair to expect non-murderers to have to learn a bunch of new rules when it has nothing to do with them. That would just be an example of reverse-murder. Also, it sounds too complicated to try. The only truly fair thing to do is absolutely nothing.”
…Person who is not going to make society better in their lifetime.
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It’s depressing that we’re still having to make this argument every time a racism thread appears.
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I find that scale really depressing. All the way to the right, before you finally get to “I will make space for POC”, after which is only the commitment to putting one’s life on the line for the fight. There are 24 stages prior to the only acceptable choices.
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Edit - from Wikipedia
Faneuil Hall (/ˈfænjəl/ or /ˈfænəl/; previously /ˈfʌnəl/), located near the waterfront and today’s Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts, has been a marketplace and a meeting hall since 1743. It was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain. Now it is part of Boston National Historical Park and a well-known stop on the Freedom Trail. It is sometimes referred to as “the Cradle of Liberty”.[2]
After the project of erecting a public market house in Boston had been discussed for some years, slave merchant Peter Faneuil offered, at a public meeting in 1740, to build a suitable edifice at his own cost as a gift to the town. There was a strong opposition to market houses, and although a vote of thanks was passed unanimously, his offer was accepted by a majority of only seven. Funded in part by profits from slave trading,[4] the building was begun in Dock Square in September of the same year.[5] It was built by artist John Smibert in 1740–1742 in the style of an English country market, with an open ground floor serving as the market house, and an assembly room above. According to Sean Hennessey, a National Park Service spokesman, some of Boston’s early slave auctions took place near Faneuil Hall.[6]
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The state - or US, rather, as we’re all part of the state - tax dollars. Maybe divert a dollar or two from murdering brown people in the middle east? Descendants of slaves. In a manner to be determined. Generally speaking public discussion and then debate in congress, including consultation with experts in the field, would help us get there.
This is not in a court room. If it comes through the court system, it’ll be because some white people don’t understand the basics of racism or taxation.
Where your or my ancestors come from are entirely irrelevant to all of this. On one side my go back to the 18th century and on the other, to the late 19th. Irrelevant.
The banking system was built on slavery with the wealth of slave owners. The rise of textiles in the NE was made possible by slavery. Where do you think the raw materials come from?
You do realize that there were still some people enslaves IN THE NORTH until 1860, right? And that pre-Revolutionary wealth in the north that lasted until in some cases today were built on slavery too?
This is not confined to the south, nor was the wealth created in the south confined there. This was a GLOBAL economy by this time (and had been for a while) and so that meant that wealth in different parts of the country were not isolated form one another.
You seem to think he’s talking about you or me personally. He’s not. He’s talking about structures that benefit one group of people over others. He doesn’t know you or me.
YOU ARE NOT PAYING BLACK PEOPLE FOR SLAVERY AND SEGREGATION. That is not how this works. YOU don’t personally pay for the salary of public officials or for schools or for roads or for wars or for medicare/caid or social security or public parks upkeep or for our public museums or for the NES or NEH, so on, etc. YOU pay taxes and those funds are distributed based on the budget passed by congress. This would be part of that.
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Something being a social construct doesn’t make it real. Also, even if it was an idea cooked up by the elites (after Bacon’s Rebellion, especially) doesn’t mean that plenty of whites didn’t enthusiastically embrace racism. For example… the making of the white working class:
These GROWN ASS women screeching behind a TEEN AGED girl were not part of the elite:
And it was the federal government stepping after this to ensure 9 teenagers could get an education.
That means dismantling all forms of bigotry, not just getting some white men more rights. We all are in this together, and forms of discrimination intersect with one another.
Because there are more white people than non-white people, as a segment of the population? A larger percentage OF African Americans tend to live in poverty. They also make the largest group of incarcerated individuals, despite not being a majority of the population.
CHILDREN BEING SHOT IS A REAL PROBLEM. Stop being dismissive of it.
You did that, by focusing on how poor whites suffer more than poor blacks. Both suffer. We can alleviate the suffering of both, and anyone arguing that we can’t both dismantle structural racism and create a more equitable society for all is the one who is seeking to divide you from your working class black allies. THAT nonsense is coming from the entrenched elite who seek to divide you against your brother. Your brothers and sisters are not just those who share your skin tone - they are all of us, seeking to improve the world. That will mean addressing specific issues in specific ways.
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If you’re poor, what’s your effective tax rate? Low to zero in terms of income tax (separating payroll taxes). If reparations are paid out of taxes, as long as it comes from general funds revenue, the burden of reparations will be progressive with income. Low income Americans will contribute little to nothing.
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No, clearly what’s going to happen is that the American gestapo will come directly to their houses, force them to give them money, and march straight over to the black people’s houses and give them money. That is, after all, how public projects and taxation actually works! /s
Seriously. The amount of ignorance around basic civics like taxation and public programs, not to mention the history of racism in America, is mind boggling here. It’s depressing when people arguing against something don’t even have a basic grasp of the issues at hand. And I’m not one of those people who believe people who are ignorant shouldn’t vote. I think we should ALL vote, ignorant or no. It’s just… depressing.
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