Presidential candidates support for slavery reparations
ASPartOfMe
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05 Apr 2019, 2:10 am
Three 2020 Democrats say ‘yes’ to race-based reparations — but remain vague on details
Sens. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), as well as former Obama administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, have all said in recent weeks they support reparations for African Americans. But the extent of their support remains unclear, with the candidates declining to offer specifics on what the program would entail and one of the nation’s foremost advocates on reparations questioning whether they should be considered in favor of the program.
Harris, asked whether she supports reparations by “The Breakfast Club” in an interview earlier this month, cited her support for several programs to help black Americans, including investing in historically black colleges, improving maternal mortality rates for black women and reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Asked again whether she was for “some type” of reparations, Harris said that she was.
“Centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, legal discrimination and segregation, and discrimination that exists today have led to a systemic wealth gap between black and white Americans that demands attention,” Harris said in a statement first given to the New York Times. “We have to be honest that people in this country do not start from the same place or have access to the same opportunities, and I’m serious about taking an approach that would change policies and structures and make real investments in black communities.”
Warren, meanwhile, also answered “yes” when asked by the New York Times whether she supports reparations, adding in a statement also given to The Washington Post that the United States must implement “systemic, structural changes” to help black families. She also pointed to her housing plan, which would offer special help for those affected by “redlining” — the decades-long, systematic practice of discrimination in mortgage practices that has diminished the wealth of black Americans.
“We must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination in this country that has had many consequences including undermining the ability of black families to build wealth in America for generations,” Warren said.
Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, first told the Root in an interview that he would favor reparations for black Americans. A spokeswoman confirmed his comments but declined to elaborate.
"I have long thought that this country would be better off if we did find a way to do that,” Castro said. “I don’t find the notion challenging. What I do find challenging is the best way to do that.”
That three presidential candidates are willing to say they support race-based reparations marks a shift in the Democratic Party, which has overall moved left on issues of racial and economic justice, although some supporters of reparations expressed concern about the depth of the candidates’ support for it.
“I’m pleased to hear a willingness to explore the idea of reparations, but I’m not sure what they have in mind constitutes a reparations program,” said William Darity, a Duke professor who has long been an advocate of reparations. “The danger is the possibility that the label ‘reparations’ is applied to a modest or incremental policy that falls far short of what is required, and political leaders then say the nation’s responsibility has been met.”
Darity said there were three key components of reparations programs in the United States: official acknowledgment of wrongdoing; redress for the crime committed; and a form of closure. For instance, Darity has called for having the federal government write checks available only to the descendants of those who had been enslaved in the United States. Other forms of reparations could include transferring stocks, bonds or other assets to descendants of sharecroppers, slaves or both.
The campaigns for Warren, Castro and Harris did not respond to requests for comment on whether they support this form of reparations or to clarify what exactly they mean by supporting reparations. Darity said reparations do not simply mean advancing policies intended to also help black Americans.
“Certainly Harris’s investments in black communities is not a reparations program; in fact, Nixonian black capitalism could be seen as a form of ‘investment in black communities’ — hardly reparations,” Darity said. “And we still have no specifics from Warren.”
Marianne Williamson, a self-help author running a long-shot bid for president, has proposed a reparations program to black Americans of $100 billion. She appears to be the only candidate in the race who has endorsed a specific reparations program, Darity said, though he added the program should cost $1 trillion at a minimum to be effective.
Beto O'Rourke says he would support reparations bill at civil rights conference
Speaking at the four-day conference of the National Action Network, the civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro weighed in on the topic. The question of whether to support reparations for African Americans as a means of addressing centuries of slavery and legal discrimination emerged as something of a litmus test earlier this year for Democratic presidential candidates.
After a speech that at times drew on stories of civil rights history from O'Rourke's hometown of El Paso, he was asked by Sharpton whether he would back a House bill that would create a commission to study the issue of reparations. He said equivocally that he would back the bill, sponsored this year by Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas.
Later, O'Rourke said that he'd discussed the issue with Brian Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. "Foundational to reparations is the word repair, foundational to repair is the truth," O'Rourke said.
"Until all Americans understand that civil rights" also involves "the injustices that have been visited and continue to be visited on people, we will never get the change that we need to live up to the promise of this country. So absolutely I would sign that into law," he said.
According to Jackson Lee, the bill would "make recommendations concerning any form of apology and compensation to begin the long delayed process of atonement for slavery."
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ASPartOfMe
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06 Apr 2019, 2:17 am
The presidential candidate parade at the Sheraton Times Square featured 13 White House wannabes — and more Martin Luther King Jr. quotes than a civil rights documentary.
But it was a piece of legislation about slavery reparations — first introduced nearly three decades ago — that built the most common ground.
The bill, which never became law and is now being reintroduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), would establish a congressional commission to study the concept of having the federal government issue reparation payments to the descendants of enslaved people.
NAN’s president, the Rev. Al Sharpton, made a point of asking every 2020 candidate at the conference whether they would as president sign the bill into law. Each candidate came out in support of the idea.
“Of course I would sign it. It needs study," Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had previously expressed reservations about the bill, told the crowd Friday.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, ex-Obama administration official Julian Castro and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — all of whom spoke at the four-day NAN conference — followed suit.
Slavery is the nagging, unrelenting shame of America,” Hickenlooper said Friday. “We must own our past, and we must apologize, and the apology should come from the Oval Office.”
The sole candidate who didn’t provide her take on the matter was Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, although she has previously suggested she supports reparations.
While affirming his support, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker was the only candidate at the conference who provided some skepticism, arguing for more substance and less sentiment.
I believe having good faith conversations about repairing for past harm in our country in the context of reparations is really important,” Booker said.
“But this conversation cannot just become a political box-checking exercise or litmus test without meaning. The boldest policies we’re talking about right now can’t just be about sentiment or about acknowledging the past. They need to be about actually balancing the economic scales and confronting the bias that persists right now in the present.”
Oh Goody the decedents of slaves will pay taxes to pay themselves.
Oh Goody people whose families were not even here at the time of slavery will have to pay taxes for reparations.
Why Was the Jussie Smollett hoax so horrible but the Al Sharpton who helped perpetrate a hoax embraced by nearly every Democratic candidate for president?
Oh Goody Trump is going to win a second term.
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“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
06 Apr 2019, 5:00 am
This is clearly something that's difficult to get right.
There is a clear moral case for reparations as well as, on a simplistic level, a utilitarian one. It's not right that the descendants of slaves continue to be disadvantaged on a systematic level, and it's also true that just as all Americans benefit from slavery, all Americans would be better off if black Americans were richer (and I don't think either effect stops at America).
Clearly, equally, the sins of the father are not the sins of the children. But at the same time, all Americans continue to benefit from the effects of slavery. For most people, it's a net benefit. For the poorest, and for the average descendant of slaves, it's a net negative. It remains a gross injustice, and it's within the normal role of government to address it. Indeed, it's not without precedent - the US government has previously paid reparations to Japanese-American internship camp survivors, and has paid significant sums of money to Native Americans in compensation for their land.
There are two major practical issues here (as well as a whole slew of minor ones). First, the passage of time. If the US government had seized the assets of slave owners and transferred them to the slaves as compensation, possibly along with some government owned land, then I think we could probably all agree that was moral. However, it was now so long ago that the worst affected (slaves themselves) are now all dead, and most people can't intuitively grasp arguments about externalities.
The second issue is the sheer size of the externality. Compound the interest on "40 acres and a mule" and you get well over $100trn. That's literally impossible to pay... which feels right symbolically. I genuinely don't think any sum of money could reverse the impact of slavery, Jim Crow, and institutional discrimination. Oh, and 40 acres of course doesn't include the impact of racism after the fall of slavery. Now, the worst of that has been rubbed away by the passage of time, but it's still why there is such a huge wealth gap between black and white Americans.
So OK, let's forget about fair compensation for unpaid labour and centuries of discrimination. That's impossible. How can we help people in the here and now? What's a fair way of compensating black Americans for the disadvantages they face due to being black?
Well, the GDP (PPP) per capita of the United States is $62,500. For black Americans, it's around $33,000. That means that the gap between black Americans and the average American (which, of course, includes black Americans) is about $30,000. There are 43 million black Americans. That suggests about $1.3trn in reparations. Still a completely terrifying number for anyone concerned about the operation and financing of the US government.
Let's say that only half that gap can be explained by the effects of discrimination. Let's further say that only half the black population are actually entitled (for example, excluding children, who will benefit through their parents, and recent immigrants). Then let's say that reparations will be paid over 50 years. A total package of $325bn divided into 50 chunks would mean payments of $6.5bn a year. That's entirely affordable. To put it in real terms, it would mean annual payments of $300 per recipient and each taxpayer would be paying around $40 a year into the pot if only income tax were used to fund the reparations. However, it would still be likely to create considerable tension and would present a whole host of logistical challenges. I'm sure many of them are obvious to those reading, but here's one that might not be - how do you define blackness?
06 Apr 2019, 5:28 am
The presidential candidate parade at the Sheraton Times Square featured 13 White House wannabes — and more Martin Luther King Jr. quotes than a civil rights documentary.
But it was a piece of legislation about slavery reparations — first introduced nearly three decades ago — that built the most common ground.
The bill, which never became law and is now being reintroduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), would establish a congressional commission to study the concept of having the federal government issue reparation payments to the descendants of enslaved people.
NAN’s president, the Rev. Al Sharpton, made a point of asking every 2020 candidate at the conference whether they would as president sign the bill into law. Each candidate came out in support of the idea.
“Of course I would sign it. It needs study," Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had previously expressed reservations about the bill, told the crowd Friday.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, ex-Obama administration official Julian Castro and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — all of whom spoke at the four-day NAN conference — followed suit.
Slavery is the nagging, unrelenting shame of America,” Hickenlooper said Friday. “We must own our past, and we must apologize, and the apology should come from the Oval Office.”
The sole candidate who didn’t provide her take on the matter was Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, although she has previously suggested she supports reparations.
While affirming his support, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker was the only candidate at the conference who provided some skepticism, arguing for more substance and less sentiment.
I believe having good faith conversations about repairing for past harm in our country in the context of reparations is really important,” Booker said.
“But this conversation cannot just become a political box-checking exercise or litmus test without meaning. The boldest policies we’re talking about right now can’t just be about sentiment or about acknowledging the past. They need to be about actually balancing the economic scales and confronting the bias that persists right now in the present.”
Oh Goody the decedents of slaves will pay taxes to pay themselves.
Oh Goody people whose families were not even here at the time of slavery will have to pay taxes for reparations.
Why Was the Jussie Smollett hoax so horrible but the Al Sharpton who helped perpetrate a hoax embraced by nearly every Democratic candidate for president?
Oh Goody Trump is going to win a second term.
Am all for social justice. But this "Slavery Reparations" notion that's been kicked around for the last 20 years seems like a SURPREMELY bad idea! Bad for each of the reasons you listed above in the last few lines.
It might have been a good idea, morally and practically, at one time, but not now.
GAWD ...I hope Dem candidates stop embracing it.
Though I admit that if I were a politician I might say "I am all for doing a STUDY about it" the way Sanders did. Studying it is not the same as implementing it. And if you're confident that studying it will prove that its a bad idea then why not study it. Lol!
06 Apr 2019, 7:39 am
Also, would reparations end the racial divide once and for all? Would the professional racists be back at the trough in another four years?
If reparations were in the forum of education and job training while the incentives to have fatherless families were eliminated with a once-and-for-all deadline after, say, twenty years was the package, I could support it.
Booker T Washington warned about "race baiters" back in 1911. It still applies.
Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2019, 2:03 pm
There is probably some work that could be done in that regard.
But what about native americans? I don't think they ever got proper reparations for what was done to them..so I mean I suppose I would be concerned if their focus is just on black americans who are at a disadvantage when they aren't the only group who's been mistreated by earlier americans. I'd like to hear from some perspective democratic candidates what they think about that.
That said not sure I would vote for any of those 3 candidates in the primary, but I am aware though some people say all the reperations already happened and black americans are not disadvantaged anymore...that's not really true, there are still some issues particularly discrimination by the legal system and police. So I certainly would not want a candidate that ignores that issue, but I don't think it should be the main focus either.
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Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2019, 2:13 pm
The presidential candidate parade at the Sheraton Times Square featured 13 White House wannabes — and more Martin Luther King Jr. quotes than a civil rights documentary.
But it was a piece of legislation about slavery reparations — first introduced nearly three decades ago — that built the most common ground.
The bill, which never became law and is now being reintroduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), would establish a congressional commission to study the concept of having the federal government issue reparation payments to the descendants of enslaved people.
NAN’s president, the Rev. Al Sharpton, made a point of asking every 2020 candidate at the conference whether they would as president sign the bill into law. Each candidate came out in support of the idea.
“Of course I would sign it. It needs study," Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had previously expressed reservations about the bill, told the crowd Friday.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, ex-Obama administration official Julian Castro and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — all of whom spoke at the four-day NAN conference — followed suit.
Slavery is the nagging, unrelenting shame of America,” Hickenlooper said Friday. “We must own our past, and we must apologize, and the apology should come from the Oval Office.”
The sole candidate who didn’t provide her take on the matter was Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, although she has previously suggested she supports reparations.
While affirming his support, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker was the only candidate at the conference who provided some skepticism, arguing for more substance and less sentiment.
I believe having good faith conversations about repairing for past harm in our country in the context of reparations is really important,” Booker said.
“But this conversation cannot just become a political box-checking exercise or litmus test without meaning. The boldest policies we’re talking about right now can’t just be about sentiment or about acknowledging the past. They need to be about actually balancing the economic scales and confronting the bias that persists right now in the present.”
Oh Goody the decedents of slaves will pay taxes to pay themselves.
Oh Goody people whose families were not even here at the time of slavery will have to pay taxes for reparations.
Why Was the Jussie Smollett hoax so horrible but the Al Sharpton who helped perpetrate a hoax embraced by nearly every Democratic candidate for president?
Oh Goody Trump is going to win a second term.
To be fair, they would just be studying giving reparation payments that kind of seems to imply they'd do some more looking into it and studying the idea before they actually implemented anything. Which means they could very well consider things like wealth of individual families and things.
I mean I certainly would have mixed feelings about providing a well off black family or individual with payments for the hardships of their ancestors, not sure I would agree with that. So I'd say they should certainly consider individual situations....black americans living in a poor area with little opportunity and excessive pollution I could understand being given some help to pull themselves up.
Another thing would be not all the black people are african american, some are immigrants from africa and so their relatives never experienced slavery here...obviously those people shouldn't get reparations for descendants of slaves in the U.S. But I suspect they would be looking into all that kind of stuff before making any specific decision.
But sounds like this is just about studying the idea of reparation payments, not that any payments are being planned as of yet, so perhaps a bit early to jump to conclusions.
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Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2019, 2:17 pm
Also just want to put this idea out here...perhaps monetary reparations, like just giving a check or whatever would not be the most effective. There may be other sorts of reparations that would have a more lasting effect, like maybe if money was invested in improving poor areas with a high population of black americans but without pricing them out of the area for instance.
I know a lot of times when they start 'gentrifying' areas to make them nicer, what ends up happening is the poorer people already living there are just priced out and either have to find another slum...or just end up on the street. In fact it could benefit poor white americans too if they improved areas like that but there were regulations in place to protect residents from being priced out. Point is it wouldn't be just the black community 'benefiting' it would be the over all community including them. IDK I just think there are other solutions than just handing out money, that is for sure.
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06 Apr 2019, 4:10 pm
But what about native americans? I don't think they ever got proper reparations for what was done to them..so I mean I suppose I would be concerned if their focus is just on black americans who are at a disadvantage when they aren't the only group who's been mistreated by earlier americans. I'd like to hear from some perspective democratic candidates what they think about that.
Meant to bring that up in my post too!
As much as America owes an unpayable debt to slaves (repeating from my last post, $100trn follows both from figures suggested at the time and also symbolically), it owes an even greater unpayable debt to the native people.
As for your proposal to eliminate gentrification - proposals to prevent gentrification tend to have nasty side effects, like increasing homelessness and leading to sub-optimal urban planning. If anything, places need to eliminate rent controls and zoning restrictions in order to encourage affordable housing. Tools like land value tax are probably the best way to combat the less desirable elements of gentrification as they discourage speculation.
06 Apr 2019, 4:21 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vweIVidzETU
Thomas Sowell's thoughts on the matter of reparations. I think he brings up a fair point of it going back and forward with no end.
My take is that it's just not possible at this point. The slaves are all dead, the slave-owners are all dead. Who you take the money from, and who you give it to is nearly impossible. I'm 1/64th black does that mean I get 1/64th the reparation payment? Oh, by the way that 1/64th is Jamaican so they weren't actually enslaved by the US. But the 63/64th is dirt poor Europeans so they never owned any American slaves.
Reparations were possible in the 1860s, now they are not.
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06 Apr 2019, 4:44 pm
Thomas Sowell's thoughts on the matter of reparations. I think he brings up a fair point of it going back and forward with no end.
My take is that it's just not possible at this point. The slaves are all dead, the slave-owners are all dead. Who you take the money from, and who you give it to is nearly impossible. I'm 1/64th black does that mean I get 1/64th the reparation payment? Oh, by the way that 1/64th is Jamaican so they weren't actually enslaved by the US. But the 63/64th is dirt poor Europeans so they never owned any American slaves.
Reparations were possible in the 1860s, now they are not.
I think you raise some good points.
On Sowell - he's right about international reparations. That seems to me to be completely foolish to attempt. However, domestic reparations within the United States are probably technically possible, if technically challenging.
While the "guilty" and "immediately wronged" parties are dead (although note that many survivors of Jim Crow are still alive), it would obviously be completely wrong to look at this from a criminal justice perspective and certainly a traditional civil justice perspective. Instead, you could look at it the same way that governments might provide compensation to people who lose their homes to big infrastructure projects. Everyone in America benefits from slavery, but the ongoing costs of slavery are disproportionately borne by a select few. You would therefore take the money from everybody (through taxation). Distributing it would possibly be the hardest task the US government has had to undertake since the Civil War. I'm unsure whether the frameworks we see in things like class-action lawsuits would be suitable.
06 Apr 2019, 5:09 pm
It simply wasn’t the case that all Americans blithely countenanced slavery. Many saw the paradox of being a republic built upon an inherently undemocratic foundation. But the persistent, systematic efforts of those who fought against slavery are generally overlooked.
In 1780 Pennsylvania enacted the New World’s first gradual abolition law, and in 1783 Massachusetts’ highest court abolished bondage, boldly declaring it null and void. Other Northern states followed suit.
It never ceases to be a wonder how Slavery is ALWAYS discussed as if it were solely and exclusively an institution of these United States of America.
-Africans were enslaved continuously by other Africans long before their importation to America ever began. They oversaw and managed the institution in the Americas FAR LONGER than it ever existed under the US flag so how about seeking reparations from them.
- England, Spain and France exported Slaves to America before the United States even existed, and The Dutch financed much of the operation. Go after them too if you want reparations
- Slavery continued to exist in most countries in the Americas after it was abolished the the USA
- a significant number of Blacks in America today never even descended from former slaves in the USA
- many people who call themselves “Black” and “African-American” today in the USA have more European blood than African blood
The entire topic is a farce. The issue of slavery in America was settled by the Civil War, at the cost of 620,000 lives. That too is a legacy worth remembering.
06 Apr 2019, 5:28 pm
While the "guilty" and "immediately wronged" parties are dead (although note that many survivors of Jim Crow are still alive), it would obviously be completely wrong to look at this from a criminal justice perspective and certainly a traditional civil justice perspective. Instead, you could look at it the same way that governments might provide compensation to people who lose their homes to big infrastructure projects. Everyone in America benefits from slavery, but the ongoing costs of slavery are disproportionately borne by a select few. You would therefore take the money from everybody (through taxation). Distributing it would possibly be the hardest task the US government has had to undertake since the Civil War. I'm unsure whether the frameworks we see in things like class-action lawsuits would be suitable.
I think it's unfeasible, given difficulties we have both already acknowledged. Seems to me a more productive effort rather than trying to right the wrongs of the past is to try and create the future that MLK Jr. dreamed of where skin color does not matter.
Reparations may even be counter to that goal, given the difficulty of deciding who does and does not qualify and the vicious debate that would accompany them. The japanese internment reparations were a MUCH clearer case (many of the actual victims were still alive, and the perpetrator was the US government) and had a contentious debate accompanying them as well.
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07 Apr 2019, 8:59 am
There should be no reparations for blacks. Because they are better off for being born in America than if their ancestors had been left alone and they'd been born in their ancestors' countries. They've been enriched by the slavery of their ancestors and the subsequent abolition of slavery, granting them American citizenry, something coveted by large numbers of people across the World.
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