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Comment by radegast | Hacker News Reader

Oh okay. I thought those people in the streets were shouting something about reparations for slavery and what not. My bad.

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Its not just slavery, its jim crow, segregation, black people being systematically disadvantaged through racist policies like getting higher rates on loans despite having the same risk. Also:

- the New Deal excluded black people

- The GI Bill excluded black people

etc...

Slaves built a huge part of the economy for free and americans benefit from that work for which they were not compensated, so yes there absolutely should be reparations. I think this should be done in several ways:

- monetarily: by funding scholarships and other projects to remedy the injustices perpetrated and help black americans accumulate some of the generational wealth they have been denied. Although at the end of the day, no amount of money will ever compensate for the hurt, death and atrocities, its a start.

- education: teaching kids at school what slavery was really like, instead of what some of the schoolbooks teach (that slavery wasn't that bad for example). Teaching kids about systemic racism that persists to this day.

- policing, housing, prisons: watch 13th documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8) its free on netflix

(edit: spelling and formatting)

This is a real problem and it has to do that we try to quantify everything for risk assessments. This is a huge problem and the IT sector is a large part of that. A problem that should be discussed.

Reparations within a country between different ethnicities a good way to increase animosity. Because people would complain rightfully, that the wealth transfer is unjust.

I doubt you find any book in education that says that slavery wasn't bad. Every ethnicity on the planet has suffered from it and < 1% were slave owners. Yes, I know the argument that people profited passively... it isn't too convincing given the huge wealth distribution discrepancies western nation exhibit.

I don't think you are advocating for justice or equality here.

> Slaves built a huge part of the economy for free and americans benefit from that work for which they were not compensated

That’s almost certainly not the case.

Any economic gains from slavery were more than wiped out by the civil war.

> Any economic gains from slavery were more than wiped out by the civil war.

Does that mean white Americans and Black Americans were on economically equal after the civil war?

> Does that mean white Americans and Black Americans were on economically equal after the civil war?

Where are you going with this line of questioning?

They aren’t economically equal now in 2020.

He's saying that if the economic gains where wiped out, then blacks and whites should have had equal economic standing after the war. But we all know that didn't happen, which is why he posed that question.

No, it is the case and is amply documented. Slavery helped propel the american economy to become an industrial powerhouse

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-ec...

Even if it was the case that the civil war wiped out the gains from slavery, it doesn't change the case for reparations as well as the other injustices that were being committed are are still being committed to this day

I assume your interest in reparations is to create an even playing field. Reparations won't do that. It'll just create a lot of opportunities for capitalist predators to milk a poorly educated population that is now flush with cash. Once they've been squeezed dry, most of them will be in an even worse situation, because reparations will have assuaged the white guilt of their supporters while stoking the racism and anger of their opponents.

So you are assuming all black people are poorly educated and will suddenly be flushed with cash?

I wasn't talking about wealth transfer. I was mainly talking about stopping discrimination and providing loans and scholarships to a section of the population that has been discriminated against to redress centuries of oppression.

The average educational attainment of black people in the united states is lower, that's not racism, it's data. You can attach racial causes to it if you want, but it doesn't change my point.

"Reparations" is basically code for wealth transfer. If you mean crafting a more just, fair society, you probably want a different word.

Firstly, the milking you refer to is already happening, and has been happening for hundreds of years. Second, as i've already said, the way i see reparations is not a simple cash transfer. Its stopping the systemic injustices and having programes in place to help black communities in terms of loans, grants and educational scholarship.

If you agree that the New Deal and GI bill helped spur economic development (though they were not perfect) and lifted poor white people out of poverty, why not do that today for black people? Black people were systematically left out of that help, so time to give them the help they are owed.

Not "suddenly" and not "all" but the point is perverse incentives and unintended consequences. Some scholarship of a conclusion you reached there :)

I’m sure people were saying that and they can speak for themselves. The problem is with extrapolating that thought to “the left”. Now you’ve editorialized it to fit you political views.

While your point is valid, media outlets with known political biases to "the left" have been putting out a lot of pro-reparations stuff since the protests started. Regardless of what the people who are actually protesting want, white folks sure like to talk about reparations.

You just replaced “people” with “media outlets” and made the same over-generalization.

The difference is that political bias of news outlets is a matter of public record, as is the number of articles on reparations before and after the protests started. All objective.

The political bias of news outlets is not an objective measure. It’s completely a matter of perspective.

I have listened to people explain how Fox News is “liberal” and “true conservatives” must watch OANN.

A tiny vocal minority.

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