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You think donations are what's going to recover the decades of lost wealth to Black Americans? The tab owed to Black Americans is in the 9-10 figure range. That's getting recouped from generous supporters, regardless of how generous or supportive they are.
This was an institutional abuse and the only fix is an institutional one. And I am not for lump sum payments either in case you think I'm making a case for Black people get a pay day.
9-10 figures .... uhh, I imagine if it would bring the problem to an end, we could find between $1B (9 figures) and 99B (10 figures).
But that's not what you want - you want an "institutional fix". So what does that look like/what are some examples of things you'd think would go towards solving the problem?
Exactly what did I have that I didn't use? I was raised dirt poor and made to believe that I'd never grow up to amount to anything of value. What "goals" did I have that no black person could have?
Depending on when you grew up, it could be as simple as "I want to move to that nice neighborhood w/ the good school."
Regardless of how poor a White person was, that was always a goal that was only limited by how much money they made. There were ZERO obstacles beside the bank balance.
A Black person in that same time... had to deal w/ banks denying them loans, real estate agents telling them the couldn't show them the property, deeds saying that property couldn't be sold to a Black person, HOAs blocking the sale of the house, and White flight crashing property values ON TOP of just securing a job that they weren't discriminated against in order to secure the cash to pay for it.
Are you sure you had the same obstacles b/c you were dirt-poor and White?
in 1948, the US Supreme Court struck down racial deed restrictions.
in 1968, the Fair Housing Act was passed as part of Civil Rights Act
in 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act was passed
what happened with Black GI's after WWII, from what I know about the government refusing to give them mortgage benefits* is unconscionable and should be rectified to this day.
So explain how so many in the black community have thrived, even those who came from very poor families. I personally know a LOT of black men and women who are highly successful and doing better than most of the white folks I know. What advantages did they have that others did not? How do you explain their success despite all of the policies, discrimination of the past?
The fact that people were able to navigate the waters of discrimination to find success does not invalidate the people who were discriminated against or remove the debt incurred from that discrimination. The people who didn't get lung cancer from smoking doesn't absolve the tobacco industry for the harm they did to people who did get lung cancer.
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Originally Posted by BoBromhal
What is the CRM?
Black people were not barred from buying homes. They were barred from buying in many neighborhoods, and they could not access mortgages the way that white people could.
I don't know what the present value of 40 acres and a mule would be, and applying it to the apparent 40,000 families that qualified for it.
We do know that ~45% of Blacks are homeowners today. We do know that about 74% of whites are
40A was an idea, never an actual policy, and was reparations for slavery only. I'm talking about the entire history of Black people legally disenfranchised from American opportunity, STARTING w/ slavery. White people were clever when it came to new ways to deny Black people their chance for success.
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Originally Posted by CLR210
You clearly do not know what you are talking about but wouldn't expect you to because you've never been white so how could you know about the kinds of obstacles white folks have.
Further, the discrimination in denying loans, property, etc have been gone for a very long time so they are no longer obstacles for blacks. What you refer to as "white flight" couldn't possibly be because maybe those white folks worked hard in order to move to better neighborhoods and schools now could it? Black folks do the SAME thing as they work to improve their situations.
I'm a student of history and law, and insomuch that it's been documented, I can say that White people did not codify discrimination against themselves, and whatever temporary discriminations you did inflict on yourselves was brief and marginal (in case you were thinking of bringing up "Irish need not apply" signs).
Gone for a long time? We brought cases against the big banks for steering Black borrowers to sub-prime loans despite them qualifying to prime loans. Banking discrimination has been a weapon the industry has used against Black people since the moment we were able to open accounts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BoBromhal
9-10 figures .... uhh, I imagine if it would bring the problem to an end, we could find between $1B (9 figures) and 99B (10 figures).
But that's not what you want - you want an "institutional fix". So what does that look like/what are some examples of things you'd think would go towards solving the problem?
Interest-free student loans and mortgages.
Trade schools and technical schools in previously red-lined communities.
Oh DANG!!! I completely forgot all about my "white privilege". You mean that privilege that resulted in my not getting that promotion back in the 90s when affirmative action required my employer give the promotion to the black dude who was significantly underqualified for the job? My boss even confirmed that is why I got passed over because "they had to hit their number for affirmative action".
That kind of thing happened a lot back then and it was well known and discussed openly. I was even told that I should be happy to move aside in order to let a black person succeed. I honestly moved on and forgot all about it since there was nothing I could do to change it. I ended up succeeding anyway.
What group of 44 million Americans ever received reparations? You think Congress would pass this? Congress can't even pass 10K student loan forgiveness and $15 min wage hikes.
the interned Japanese-Americans...
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In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act to compensate more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent who were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II. The legislation offered a formal apology and paid out $20,000 in compensation to each surviving victim.
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Congress made two attempts at reparations, the Japanese-American Claims Act of 1948 and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Between 1948 and 1965, the former authorized payments totaling $38 million (which comes to somewhere between $286 to $374 million in 2014 dollars), which didn't come close to matching the economic loss. The latter offered survivors $20,000 each in reparations. By 1998, 80,000 survivors had collected their share, for a total payout of $1.6 billion (between $2.3 billion and $3.2 billion today). There is no accounting by which either measure adequately repaid internees for their economic losses, let alone compensated for pain and suffering.
Regardless of how much discrimination Jews faced in America, none of it was codified to the extent that it was codified for Black Americans. That's the obstacle that Jews never had to overcome in America to get their perches. You might have been discriminated against, but you were legally allowed to pursue the things you wanted. And worst case, you were allowed to blend in w/ society at large to fake your way into it. History is full of Jewish success that came after denying they were Jewish, again something that almost no Black people would've been able to pull off.
So even if you say successful, established Blacks could help out other Blacks, that was meaningless b/c both groups were equally disenfranchised from society at large. At the end of the day, regardless of how successful Madam CJ Walker was (America's first female millionaire [Black]), she couldn't do anything for a gifted Black person who wanted to be a scientist or writer or maitre'd at a fancy downtown restaurant b/c she was a barred and disenfranchised from those institutions as the everyday Black person.
I’m talking about NOW. Or even 25 years ago. Successful, established blacks need to do more to help out other blacks. They are not disenfranchised from society NOW, nor have they been for one or two generations. The same one or two generations that Jews and Asians have taken to rise from poverty to affluence.
A Black person in that same time... had to deal w/ banks denying them loans, real estate agents telling them the couldn't show them the property, deeds saying that property couldn't be sold to a Black person, HOAs blocking the sale of the house, and White flight crashing property values ON TOP of just securing a job that they weren't discriminated against in order to secure the cash to pay for it.
Sounds like a good incentive for assimilation. If you’re suggesting that blacks need white banks, white money, white schools, and what neighborhoods to prosper then we blacks should have no problem embracing education, self reliance, law and order, entrepreneurship, limited government, and fee market capitalism.
Cultural assimilation to prosper, what a novel concept.
in 1948, the US Supreme Court struck down racial deed restrictions.
in 1968, the Fair Housing Act was passed as part of Civil Rights Act
in 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act was passed
what happened with Black GI's after WWII, from what I know about the government refusing to give them mortgage benefits* is unconscionable and should be rectified to this day.
1948 did not end the denial of housing to Black people. Home owners & HOAs still created new deeds w/ those terms, banks still enforced the deed, and Black people were still barred from housing purchases in neighborhoods they wanted to live.
1968 did not end housing discrimination or steering for Black homebuyers. RE agents still didn't show Black people homes where they weren't wanted.
1977 did not recover the wealth that decades of policy had cost Black Americans.
There weren’t 42 million of them... Nice try though.
Propose giving 42 million blacks $20K (the rough equivalent of $10K in 1988 for Japanese Survivors) and see how fast that gets laughed at by both sides.
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