Injuries caused by the institution of slavery threaten basic social bonds in U.S. communities. It’s worth working together for as long as it takes to make it right.
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That you think it would only be reparations for slavery shows how little you know about the issue.
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An author can refuse to read comments. Many do. I don’t blame them. The ONLY possible reason for turning them off altogether is to prevent readers being able to see information the author disagrees with.
As it happens, I read Kevin Drum’s blog daily. I know that Coates blatantly lied about what Drum says. It can’t be a simple mistake because Drum actually explicitly stated the exact opposite of what Coates claims he said.
Addressing what’s happening right now too, with a racial test to qualify. Black Americans do not have a unique claim here.
Women on the internet have found that open comment threads allow jerks the perfect forum to doxx them in a way that gets right to the intended audience.
Even in less-extreme situations, there are many subjects where the comment thread will reliably descend into vile insults and flame wars. It would be irresponsible to provide the means for such a thread, and a stupid waste of time to read it.
But the only possible reason you can see is that it prevents readers from seeing statements that you agree with.
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No, that’s really not the ONLY possible reason. Having read many comment sections on Coates articles before he started disabling them, “information,” was very, very hard to come by.
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States did not “give” Native Americans anything. Tribal sovereignty was guaranteed to them by peace treaties forced on the tribes at the end of the Indian wars and approved by the Senate. Tribes have had to fight for those sovereignty rights ever since. North Carolina went to the mat to prevent a casino on Cherokee land. Western states have violated native water rights repeatedly. Right now, states rights assholes in Oregon are destroying native artifacts, and part of their beef is that natives are allowed the use of federal land. It isn’t reserved exclusively for rapacious ranchers.
African Americans have actually gotten quite a lot from the Federal government in comparison to natives. Another provision of the treaties was a promise of health care, but the Indian Health Service is chronically underfunded and has been known to hire defrocked doctors as well as people who are not doctors at all. Native children were forcibly removed from their families and transported thousands of miles east in an attempt to turn them into white people. And let’s not get into the number of times extractive industries have tried to make an end run around tribal land use rights.
Essentially, they haven’t really been “given” anything and have had to fight like demons to retain the sovereignty rights that the federal government guaranteed to them.
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Your premise is disconnected from your evidence. What is a different reason, from Coates’ point of view, for turning off comments? Is he nobly saving the delicate sensibilities of his readers?
No one is saying they do. Other groups are certainly free to fight for their claims.
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If you sincerely think the the ONLY possible reason to not enable comments on an article is because of “information”
- we either live in parallel universes only bridged by a wormhole through this comment section, so alas, we have no frame of reference for any meaningful discussion.
or - you are so carefully filtering what you see that we have no frame of reference for any meaningful discussion.
Either way I will not be chatting with you here about this. Feel free to post a blog about it though (be sure to enable comments), I’d chat with you in the comments section there where it’s not a completely off topic train-wreck of derailment.
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I apologize. I was trying my hand at being a good writer. Not nearly as talented as Coates.
I was trying to say that “Blacks” as a timeless and global group were not disenfranchised, but rather point out that several specific incidents took place in specific places. I was not trying to say that bad things haven’t happened or that they don’t continue to happen.
The reason I was making the point is that it really changes the formula for any reparations. We owe former slaves far more in restitution than we owe the black woman who got a 4% interest rate vs 2% interest rate.
Not exactly the same. Those financial systems are dealing with fixed numbers. If you wanted to figure it out, you could probably figure out exactly how many hammers were purchased in the state of Delaware last month. It would be hard, but it could be determined. You can’t tell me how many people were harmed by racist policies. You can only guess. You can’t tell me how much it impacted their children, you can only guess. You can’t determine how much aid will help correct the problem.
So, here is the crux of my argument.
Do we give all black people money? What about Barack Obama?
I mention Barack Obama because while he is black, he is not the child of a slave. He is not the child of a black person who suffered any significant racial injustice in the United States. He suffered some injustice, but only in a post-LBJ America. Barack Obama is also a fairly wealthy guy, but ignore that aspect. Imagine Obama was comfortably middle-class. Does he still deserve reparations?
Personally, I am a huge fan of the “negative income tax”. The idea that all people should have a basic level of income to fall back on. I think if we passed a “black-only” NIT that it would be problematic and very poorly received. It might work, but it might also work to reinforce racist stereotypes about welfare queens and ‘lazy blacks’. I think it would be better to pass a global NIT. Tailor it to help the special needs of the black community(i.e. typically lower available liquid assets), but make it global.
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Coates’ basic proposition is:
There are a lot of living victims of much of that. Coates has talked about the living and discoverable victims of that in at least a few things he’s written on the topic. He’s outlined specific kinds of institutionalized racism that have many living victims and written about the living people affected and what their experiences were/are. You seem to be ignoring what he’s said to invent a problem so you can dismiss it all.
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Coates seems to point out that in some instances we can find specific victims, but ignores the fact that in most cases we cannot find most of the victims. I applaud Coates for bringing the conversation to the forefront. I am simply pointing out that the damage is too systemic and too vague to ever be repayed completely and directly. Sanders and Coates both know this, but Coates isn’t running for office.
Obama’s Justice department recently prosecuted Ally bank for racist prejudice. It was a great case, but no specific victims were named. Statistical analysis was used and the determination was that predominantly black neighborhoods were given significantly higher rates. In restitution, the bank will pay those people who paid higher rates a refund. However, it won’t be based on the color of their skin.
Yes there’s no way to fully rectify the wrongs of the past. Dismissing the proposition in a way that defeats even considering it is where I have a problem. We can’t even reach the point of actually sorting out which victims of systematic socio-economic abuse might qualify for some kind of reparation or what a reparation would entail until we’re at the point of facing reality and wanting to right those wrongs enough to put together commissions/working groups to sort it out in an informed, practical, and realistic way (comments on articles on the internet do not count here). As someone who is not a member of a full-time fact finding commission I know I don’t know enough to be in a position to say much besides that it’s a moral failure for society to not want to work to right those massive injustices, and that we should take into account not just slavery but everything else Coates discussed.
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Not dismissing it wholesale. In fact, I proposed a solution.
The problem is that my solution is a bit more nuanced, avoids the baggage associated with a “black-only” solution. It might be healing to have a “black-only” solution. It might be harmful. I dont think any commission can answer that question unless they have a time machine.
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Let me know when they hire you on the commission. Then you can share your color-blind proposals to help the victims of institutional racism with everyone.
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I am not a fan of Ta-Nehisi Coates. According to the liberal, white agenda, Coates is the new James Baldwin. His views do not represent about race in America do not represent all blacks and for some reason, we have never had a black female embraced by the white, news media dominated intelligentsia.
As a dyed in the wool, older black female, I disagree with Coates’ call for reparations fort we black folks. Reparations will not restore African American dignity. Reparations cannot/will not ensure that no black person will ever fall back into the state of poverty after receiving reparations. Reparations will not ensure competitive educations for all black children. Reparations will not ensure decent, long-term employment with competitive salaries for all black lives sullied by slavery. Reparations will not erase the color from our skins - that fickle, flashing neon sign that defines us as inferior. No other hyphenated racial group remains hyphenated except for African Americans because our skins will never be quite white enough to blend in and become completely assimulated. My family has lived in these United States for at least seven generations and I have no ties to Africa and therefore I do not identify as African. And finally, reparations will not auger the necessary understanding that must exist between those who cannot or will not accept the humanity of “the other”.
You tipped your hand.
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I keep hearing about a liberal white agenda, but I never get the meeting invites. I’d like to show up just to let them know that their planned UN takeover, mass-scale gun confiscation, government-worship, religion/Christmas-bans (except Islam, of course), destroying Capitalism, and things all seem like some kind of ridiculous caricature.
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