Wu reveals members of the new Boston Reparations Task Force (loans, attorney)

[BruinsGirl]

https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2...ons-task-force

Mayor Michelle Wu revealed Tuesday the members of Boston’s Reparations Task Force, setting the stage for the panel charged with guiding the city’s response to the historic impacts of slavery on the city's Black American population.

"For four hundred years, the brutal practice of enslavement and recent policies like redlining, the busing crisis, and exclusion from city contracting have denied Black Americans pathways to build generational wealth, secure stable housing, and live freely," said Wu. "Our administration remains committed to tackling long-standing racial inequities, and this task force is the next step in our commitment as a city to advance racial justice and build a Boston for everyone.”

The 10-member panel will be chaired by attorney Joseph Feaster Jr., former president of the NAACP Boston branch and a current member of the city’s Black Men and Boys Commission.

I wonder if non Black Americans without generational wealth will now participate in paying reparation?

[Boston Shudra]

What a woman!

I’m not optimistic about this being easy, but I do believe that this is the kind of thing that voters (white people included) imagined possible when they elected Wu.

I see two main objections to this that I’ll comment on separately: one personal and one fiscal. I’ll start by addressing the personal.

I’m practically 100% Irish on both sides of my family and all my great-grandparents only moved to the country in the early 1900s. I don’t have any slave owners in my family tree, and no one I’m descended from was in the USA during its Civil War. However, one thing is undeniably true: I have, as an Irish guy in Boston in 2023, benefitted from the centuries of mistreatment of non-white people in the US. When my great-grandparents arrived from Ireland in the early 1900s, the children they had were easily able to obtain good educations and the loans required to get their feet on the property ladder. The same was not true of Black Americans living in Boston at that time.

If that’s not enough to convince anyone whose families arrived after the Civil War, consider then the busing crisis and the Charles Stuart scandal. Non-WASP people (Irish, Italian, Polish, etc.) were wholly in charge of city government by then, and yet these incidents still happened. Just because our ancestors didn’t own slaves on plantations in Mississippi doesn’t mean we or our parents weren’t personally responsible for the unfair mis-treatment of Black Americans in Boston.

The second is fiscal: why should I be actively paying strangers if I haven’t done anything wrong? Maybe you don’t need to actively pay anything? The “reparations” to Black Americans could be entirely exemption-based. Perhaps the city decides to enact a “no African or African American residents will owe the city any tax money” law? In this case, non Black Americans owe no extra money that will go directly to the pockets of strangers. Rather, the city will just be lower on money to spend. Perhaps that will lead it to reform zoning to allow a big enough population increase to make up the difference. Population and tax burden must have an diminishing marginal return or else places like NYC or London wouldn’t be possible. Not to mention that a non-taxed, Black American-owned business could still employ non-Black workers and add to the region’s GDP like any other company.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Damn I gotta get back in 2024/2025 and get mines.

I also appreciate how the entire panel is black and just as important

“The study commission should aim to finish its work by 2024, according to the ordinance, which also requires that at least five commission members be descendants of American freedmen, or Africans enslaved in the United States.”

That’s me!

I really do not care what anyone says I am owed money. All African Americans (and Afro-Caribbean Americans) are owed money from some Western/European Nation.

My father always made a good points that there are those who say “poor people of any race should get something.” Well no- what would be the ‘repair’ part of that reparation.. what would be being repaired?

As for African Americans doing well economically and should they be included he said if they’re doing well know had their ancestors never been enslaved who knows how well they would be doing? It a massive insult to suggest anything otherwise. It was how he felt and I feel the same.

Realistically they should do they’re best to estimate profits from shave labor from 1619-1865 + the economic benefit accrued by whites via of suppressed competition for homes (GI Bill) and jobs of Jim Crow policies from 1877-1964. Add that total up and divide by every non foreign born blacks person in the country and send out the check. Subtract the benefits of affirmative action too.

If Native American get free land, sovereignty, casinos and free college tuition I want just as much if not more because we’ve been waiting for our 40 acres and a mile- they got theirs.

Make it a nice long by 10 year comprehensive study but promise us a check is coming at the end of it. After that’s done? no more complaining from me, I promise.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by Boston Shudra

What a woman!
.

The second is fiscal: why should I be actively paying strangers if I haven’t done anything wrong? Maybe you don’t need to actively pay anything? The “reparations” to Black Americans could be entirely exemption-based. Perhaps the city decides to enact a “no African or African American residents will owe the city any tax money” law? In this case, non Black Americans owe no extra money that will go directly to the pockets of strangers. Rather, the city will just be lower on money to spend. Perhaps that will lead it to reform zoning to allow a big enough population increase to make up the difference. Population and tax burden must have an diminishing marginal return or else places like NYC or London wouldn’t be possible. Not to mention that a non-taxed, Black American-owned business could still employ non-Black workers and add to the region’s GDP like any other company.

Black Americans should have been offered free college and no income tax loooong ago, in addition to free DNA/Ancestry testing. We could’ve been offered free land too, that’s what was supposed to happen.

[BruinsGirl]

Boston Shudra, I’m not sure how familiar you are with business, but you should understand that business not paying taxes will be unfair competition to business paying taxes. Do you know what will happen next?

More about taxes… are you going to split black population of Boston by different categories/classes … people with ancestors slaves who lived in Boston and ones who didn’t live here and they will have different incomes even though they work same jobs? You don’t see anything wrong here?

I’m originally from the country which went through a very strange experiment related to social justice. People who designed it saw some perfect picture and it ended ugly. In this attempt I see many more problems.

PS I just re-read you post. Wh6 should no African resident pay taxes? So doctor who moved here from Africa shouldn’t pay taxes? Why?

I really hope this “committee” will come up which something more constructive. Maybe more scholarships, free quality after school programs for kids (all poor kids) , childcare, more and better housing. Something like that.

[BruinsGirl]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

Black Americans should have been offered free college and no income tax loooong ago, in addition to free DNA/Ancestry testing. We could’ve been offered free land too, that’s what was supposed to happen.

Do you think all non Black residents have land in their possession? I’m not even talking about land in Boston! Majority of white people at max can afford 1-2 bedroom there and now even one hour from Boston Realestate costs a lot.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by BruinsGirl

Do you think all non Black residents have land in their possession? I’m not even talking about land in Boston! Majority of white people at max can afford 1-2 bedroom there and now even one hour from Boston Realestate costs a lot.

I am not really concerned with what white people do or do not have. Collectively, and yes you are a collective like it or not, you have a lot..enough to spare. Much more than my people who were redlined, blockbusted, subprime loaned, spit on, mocked,, firebombed, beat up, and arrested for trying to move into certain areas or access certain jobs/school all in very recent and well documented, photographed history.

And anyways white people made the laws that made Boston as expensive as it is. They have run the city and so any problem regarding affordability are theirs to shoulder- not ours. And truth be told many white people enjoy the expense because it is their wealth engine

^for this reason it makes sense white people were not on the panel. These things will happen for decades and a majority of white people will determine it’s ‘not that bad’ or didn’t happen to you directly so it has no effect on you (does that even sound true/logical?) and that black people should be content with what they have now and what programs exists now.

The vacant lots that dot Boston should go to black developers, community preservation groups or developers, if people really have a problem with direct cash payments. Which they do. Black businesses should pay taxes but black American individuals should not.

And yes you can require people prove they are of American lineage- I can do that so I’m not terribly concerned with excluding other black groups. While they should be compensated as well, this is not where they were enslaved so let’s just keep it realistic.

[BruinsGirl]

When I mentioned white people I did not meat to say that it should be more affordable to white people (or black, or green). City is expensive because people WANT to live in Boston due to professional opportunities it presents for people of any color! It is not good or bad it is a fact. Supply and demand. This is how it works everywhere in this world. It is not Boston's specifics, but you want to make it different for black people in Boston? Hmmm It will get cheap if it'll lose an appeal.

The vacant lots that dot Boston should go to black developers, community preservation groups or developers, if people really have a problem with direct cash payments. Which they do. Black businesses should pay taxes but black American individuals should not.

So black developers will be building for black people only? In all parts of Boston?

Not paying taxes based on color is the same as receiving cash payment based on color, because other people will be paying taxes.
For a person who is clearly upset about segregation and abuses in the past you seem to enjoy entertaining exactly same ideas.

[G-fused]

Dicey topic. I heard an interview with the head of the taskforce and wasn't impressed. In terms of the actualy task force, it will have 2 high school students on it.

This is step 1 of many others that will eventually lead nowhere.

[bostongymjunkie]

I'm all for hearing what they have to say. I might also be in favor of remedial actions that created opportunities to address those impacted by certain social problems, not for awarding money to individuals simply because they happen to have dark skin, including many of whom have no lineage to slavery in America. I also don't think most reasonably motivated advocates for this are proposing that either. I think the "me me me" crowd holding out their hands, represent this movement's biggest liability. I don't think this approach will ever be taken seriously by most people. It should be about efforts to correct problems, not reward people who are far removed from the original issue or punishing people who had nothing to do with it.