The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Michael Maiello's picture

    Reparations Open Thread

    By Michael Maiello on Sat, 05/24/2014 - 3:56pm | Politics

    The Case For Reparations is as good an essay as everybody says.

    Discuss?

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

      My feelings about reparations are somewhat confused. If it's about paying reparations for proven wrongs done to individuals--the victims of housing robber barons, people who were denied FHA insurance because of their race, people who lived under Jim Crow--I'm all for it.

     It's trickier when we are talking about compensation for presumed disadvantages resulting from wrongs done to  previous generations.  It could be hard to prove that an individual African-American was suffering today because of  things in the past.  Certainly many probably are, but there should be certainty if people are going to get compensation from public funds. Would reparations go to every African-American, or do they have to be poor?  It might be hard to prove that  all middle or upper-income African-Americans are getting screwed by endemic injustices. 

     And some might say that  wrongs done by private individuals, like the nasty mortage holders, should be compensated by their estates rather than by the government. To what extent, if any, can affirmative action and anti-poverty programs be considered reparations? Give me some help here.


    by Aaron Carine on Sat, 05/24/2014 - 7:30pm

    Confusion is good here, it's the right response.  What Coates is arguing for is first a moral, political and ethical accounting and then an economic one.  Every question you've brought up is on the table.

    But, in the end, I think the payments would go to every African American as Coates argues, in the case of the Obamas, for example that their stunning success came in spite of what they faced not proof that they were somehow exempt from the challenges faced by the community.

    I think his argument is that no matter their current station in life they are all victims owed restitution to likely equal degree.  In fact, I think the argument is that a rich African American is owed reparations even while their are poor whites.


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 9:36am

    I've shared many of these thoughts over the years on the admittedly rare occasions when I've thought about reparations. He addresses many of our questions here:

    "Broach the topic of reparations today and a barrage of questions inevitably follows: Who will be paid? How much will they be paid? Who will pay? But if the practicalities, not the justice, of reparations are the true sticking point, there has for some time been the beginnings of a solution. For the past 25 years, Congressman John Conyers Jr., who represents the Detroit area, has marked every session of Congress by introducing a bill calling for a congressional study of slavery and its lingering effects as well as recommendations for “appropriate remedies.”

    A country curious about how reparations might actually work has an easy solution in Conyers’s bill, now called HR 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. We would support this bill, submit the question to study, and then assess the possible solutions. But we are not interested.

    “It’s because it’s black folks making the claim,” Nkechi Taifa, who helped found N’COBRA, says. “People who talk about reparations are considered left lunatics. But all we are talking about is studying [reparations]. As John Conyers has said, we study everything. We study the water, the air. We can’t even study the issue? This bill does not authorize one red cent to anyone.”

    That HR 40 has never—under either Democrats or Republicans—made it to the House floor suggests our concerns are rooted not in the impracticality of reparations but in something more existential. If we conclude that the conditions in North Lawndale and black America are not inexplicable but are instead precisely what you’d expect of a community that for centuries has lived in America’s crosshairs, then what are we to make of the world’s oldest democracy?


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 9:51am

    It is a good essay. I support Ta-Nehisi Coates' call to study the idea in the House of Representatives.

    One thing about law suits that is important to consider is that they are supposed to end the dispute. No further claims are to be made after the matter is settled. I am not sure how this observation fits into a reparation on this scale but it does involve the question of what closure of the problem should look like.

    That question drove the people driving the Civil Rights Movement to concentrate upon achieving equal rights and opportunity under law. The debt is so deep that it is hard to imagine it being paid.


    by moat on Sat, 05/24/2014 - 7:44pm

    While a case was made very well, he did not address openly why other groups such as Native Americans should not receive reparations, or at the very best, wait for theirs at a later date.  The article unfortunately does what a lot of articles, posts and comments do when the issue of race and injustice comes up: makes American seem like a country with just blacks and whites. 

    I would just add this part from Bryce Covert at Think Progress regarding the plight in Native American communities:

    A potential solution for this problem [continued double digit unemployment] that the report singles out is to create jobs through infrastructure investment, particularly in Indian Country, which has “large, unfilled infrastructure needs.”

    But instead the country is doing the opposite and withdrawing money from Native American communities. Sequestration cuts that took effect in March immediately caused hardship for schools on or near reservations that rely on federal Impact Aid, and the second round of cuts has forced some to lay of teachers and staff, eliminate extracurricular activities, or even close schools outright. The cuts hampering schools come at a time when Native American students have seen virtually no improvement in closing the academic achievement gap with white students since 2005 and they fall behind their white peers in college readiness.

    Meanwhile, many programs that help low-income people were exempted from sequestration’s cuts, but as Annie Lowrey reported at the New York Times, “virtually none of the programs aiding American Indians — including money spent through the departments of interior, education, health and human services and agriculture — were included on that list.” That has meant fewer health services, less financial support for the less well off, and more crime, among other impacts. Unemployment and poverty have both increased. These programs can expect another round of cuts next year if sequestration remains in place.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 8:27am

    It isn't Mr. Coates responsibility to address why another group does or does not deserve reparations. Seriously. I find it the lamest of comments/analysis to say, well he didn't address this fact I am interested in, therefore... and then continue with your criticism by quoting a blog on ThinkProgress. 

    It took me several hours to read and re-read that Atlantic article, because the facts included in in are deeply disturbing and indicate how deeply racism infiltrates our government and society.

    The weakest and least relevant criticism of him is that he didn't include what you want to see in his essay. I take issue with what you've written because it is intellectually dishonest and you know it. Because while what you mentioned has obvious parallels to the discussion Mr. Coates has broached with the American public, he is writing about what America did and he was using one man specifically to demonstrate what how the deepness of institutional racism. And why is he writing about it, well because douchebags like Joe Scarborough, all of the fox news employees, and just far too many people are making the claim that America is no longer a place where racism exists. And if we believe what these folks are saying, we ignore the institutional nature of real racism and we will fail to move towards a less racist America.


    by tmccarthy0 on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 9:19am

    What we are talking about if you look at Mr. Maoello's post is about reparations not about whether racism exists, or the extent of the injustice.  Reparations is a specific topic about spending tax payers money to right wrongs done in the past and present.  I could talk about why I should have to pay money because of the sins of say Mississippi. Or whether Mississsippi should pay a greater share than say Washington State.  But this is about finding a cost attached to injustice and repression.  Why should blacks be considered before Native Americans when it comes to be repaid for injustice done?

    So I am saying that singling out specific marginalized group and repay them while one ignores the others isn't an effective way to deal with the institutionization of repression, marginalization, and oppression.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 10:03am

    Here is a quote by Coates:

    Chicago, like the country at large, embraced policies that placed black America’s most energetic, ambitious, and thrifty countrymen beyond the pale of society and marked them as rightful targets for legal theft. The effects reverberate beyond the families who were robbed to the community that beholds the spectacle. Don’t just picture Clyde Ross working three jobs so he could hold on to his home. Think of his North Lawndale neighbors—their children, their nephews and nieces—and consider how watching this affects them. Imagine yourself as a young black child watching your elders play by all the rules only to have their possessions tossed out in the street and to have their most sacred possession—their home—taken from them.

    The message the young black boy receives from his country, Billy Brooks says, is “ ‘You ain’t shit. You not no good. The only thing you are worth is working for us. You will never own anything. You not going to get an education. We are sending your ass to the penitentiary.’ They’re telling you no matter how hard you struggle, no matter what you put down, you ain’t shit. ‘We’re going to take what you got. You will never own anything, nigger.’ ”

    Well, this is the same message that a young Native American boy receives when he sees his school shut down because of cuts to the budget.  So to be perfectly clear: For someone like me, to make the case for reparations, you have to prove that blacks are at this particular point in time more deserving than other groups.  That is not being intellectually dishonest.  It is putting forth an opinion that apparently you don't like.  There is a difference.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 10:39am

    I don't think the Native American issue is enough to damage Coates' argument and I agree with you, it's not really fair to expect him to deal with everything in one article. The black experience in America is topic enough for any one essay or book.  Also, I'd bet that if a debate about reparations to African Americans inspired Native American activists to call for the same that Coates wouldn't exactly stand in their way.  I don't know if I'd say that bringing it up is intellectually dishonest.


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 10:52am

    I think we have to distinguish between the general concept of "do blacks in this country deserve reparations" which I agree Coates does an excellent job making the case for, and the specific issue of whether the US Government should actually pay reparations to those who can claim financial harm as a result of the racism directed toward them or their ancestors for being black.  Those are two very different cases. 


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:04am

    I'm a bit surprised you haven't extended the field to all the other groups who were also robbed. If America isn't just white and black, it also isn't just white, black, and Native American. We could keep adding groups like this until the whole thing fell under its own weight.

    But an easy answer to your concern would be for HR 40 to include a similar discussion around reparations to Native American communities. Blacks and Native Americans, the two groups who were ripped off and oppressed most harshly and extensively. I'm sure Coates would concur.

    But I think you miss a piece of this that Coates regards as important. He allows for the possibility that even if we were to consider only the case for reparations to black folks, we might find, after a thorough investigation, that we owed too much to repay, that we couldn't figure out how or to whom to repay it, and so on.

    But the discussion, the open investigation, and the assumption of deserved guilt and responsibility, would still do the country and African Americans good.

    As he notes at several points, our discussion about current racism in this country is diluted because we don't recognize its presence or its impact or the policies that have created it and still create it.

    We look at the wealth gap, and many shake their heads wondering why, after "all the help those people have received, billions and billions of dollars, they're still mired in poverty and unable to move up like most other ethnic groups have done? Slavery was abolished over 150 years ago. We haven't had Jim Crow for 60 years or so. What's wrong with those people?"

    So even if dime one isn't paid--and I believe he hopes many dimes will be paid somehow--an honest, national examination about racial injustice would be salutary. This is why he argues against recent leftist positions that black poverty be subsumed under poverty in general or under a colorblind analysis of class.

    As he quotes LBJ, black poverty is different from white poverty and not just in quantity--a point we always get hung up on when discussions become pointless debates over who was hurt worse or who killed more people--but in quality. 


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:27am

    You make excellent points.  In a way, titling his essay "The Case for Reparations" causes a lot of what he has to say get mired in a sticky issue.  What he really points to is how racism toward blacks has become institutionalized, right up to the present moment.  How do we confront that, begin to work with it, and start not only healing but developing something more productive and supportive within the private and public sectors.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:42am

    How could the plight of the Native American possibly damage Coates thesis? See that is why I think how Trope broached his criticism is intellectually dishonest, because Coates is merely pointing out to all those folks who continue to insist racism is gone because of the election of the black guy. He didn't just write the piece for no reason, this piece is in response to all those folks who continue to make the claim that we just aren't racist anymore. Coates also demonstrated quite effectively that racism goes far beyond lynching and separate drinking fountains. 

    That is his thesis, shouldn't anyone who is commenting on Coates piece be responsible for criticizing the piece based on what it actually says, not what the criticizer thinks he should have included in his piece. Fair criticism would deal with Coates actual piece. Period. I think it's trollish, particularly because of all incredible research that went into that essay. He used one man's experience and demonstrated how these policies actually impact the wider African American community. His thesis is valid, his example has clearly demonstrated the impacts of wide ranging policies of our local, state and federal governments towards African Americans.  


    by tmccarthy0 on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 3:23pm

    Coates is merely pointing out to all those folks who continue to insist racism is gone because of the election of the black guy.

    Then why title it "The Case for Reparations."  You are just talking about racism and not reparations.  Michael gives no other words but "discuss."  So I discussed that he didn't convince me that there should be reparations given because he didn't address the full topic of reparations, or really begin to address it.  He just made the case that blacks would definitely deserve to be in the mix when it came time to dole out the payments.  For me that was already a given, so no big illumination.  In other words, based on the title he gave the essay (I'm assuming it was him and not some editor) - I think he failed to make his case.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 4:06pm

    "What about Native Americans?" was something I also thought about as I finished reading the piece.  I agree with you, it doesn't really affect the case for reparations for African Americans, that stands on its own.  I also agree with you that it holds very little meaning for the central thesis which is that all this "post racial" talk is pure fantasy.

    But that doesn't mean that it's trollish to wonder about other aggrieved parties to American history.  In fact, Coates anticipates the question.  He does, after all, deal with the idea that poor white Americans have also been screwed by arguing "Yes, but it's not at all the same when you really look at it."

    I think questions like this are totally in scope.

     


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 6:43pm

    Coates's excellent essay covers a lot of ground, but it still leaves many questions unanswered, and if we're going to "discuss", we need to think about them.

    Slumlords are equal-opportunity defaecators:  they shit on all the poor.  Black migrants to the north were not worse off than other minorities.  In fact, they had tremendous advantages over the Chinese coolies, Jewish greenhorns, Mexican wetbacks:  they could speak the language!  They knew the system, knew where the levers of power were found.  Because they were born in the country, blacks had large networks of extended families who could help them:  wherever they went there would be an Aunt Martha who could put them up, and an Uncle Ta-Nehisi who could advise them about employment....

    All the poor minorities went through similar attempts to escape poverty:  through sports (especially boxing), through crime..., but the others eventually climbed out of their ghettos and Hell's Kitchens.

    I hope Coates (or someone else) will deal with this.  Crying "We wuz robbed!" isn't good enough.


    by Lurker on Mon, 05/26/2014 - 3:19am

    It's a little like the conundrum Obama has been in.

    Mutatis mutandis.

    Obama clearly thinks of himself as president of ALL the people.

    And yet, he gets criticized by West et al for not doing enough for black people.

    However, if he had focused on black people, as here, the cry would have gone out: But what about Native Americans and all the other poor people.

    It's a tough needle to thread.

    Coates's mission was to explore the ways in which blacks were robbed because they were black.

    Broadening the scope would've destroyed the theme, even assuming he had the real estate, expertise, or thought there were enough meaningful similarities to make it a meaningful read. There are similarities, to be sure, but there are many, many differences that have nothing to do with whether one set of circumstances was "worse."


    by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 11:12am

    Broadening the scope would've destroyed the theme...

    The theme here seems to be basically that due to this and that financial hoodwinking, along with the past history of slavery, lynching etx,  blacks deserve reparations

    There are similarities, to be sure, but there are many, many differences that have nothing to do with whether one set of circumstances was "worse."

    But if one broaches the subject of reparations, and the notion of creating a broader discourse in this country about the injustices through the discussion of reparations, I think one has to deal with the fact that blacks were not the only ones who have suffered under the white patriarchy that has dominated the power structure of this country. 

    By strictly focusing on one of the marginalized groups, there is the implicit subtext that this group suffered the worse.  As this thread indicates, as soon as the topic is brought up, especially with a title like "The Case for Reparations," one is going to have to deal with the other marginalized groups and their allies coming to the podium and saying "hold on one moment." 


    by Elusive Trope on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 12:27pm

    By strictly focusing on one of the marginalized groups, there is the implicit subtext that this group suffered the worse.

    That's where we go with it...and a lot of people go with it...but I'm not sure that's true.

    The groups could be taken up on a case by case basis.

    I don't know exactly how reparations went post-WWII, but the fact that Israel argued for reparations and Germany gave them didn't mean that the UK, France, Russia, and Poland had to be considered.

    Did it?


    by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 1:44pm

    I'm thinking that Coates is not at all interested in a "who had it worse," discussion and we certainly don't have to take it there.  There's definitely room for separate discussions about other people who are owed reparations by this country.  But they needn't all be pitted against each other.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 1:52pm

    So I've been thinking a bit about what it means to "make the case for reparations."

    Here are a few thoughts:

    • Clearly, to make the case that A owes B, we don't also need to make the case that A owes C money, even if that's true. Why would we?

    • "Making the case for reparations" could be a generalized case that shows why later generations are obligated to pay the debts of previous generations. There's some support for this when we think about the national debt which is money "we" owe even though some of the debt was incurred before we were born.

    • The generalized case might also cover whether we can say a debt was incurred when there was no accounting for it. In fact, if we say that whites stole blacks' labor, then is that really a "debt" per se? So, is it a debt and, if so, how do we measure it?

    • What if the debt is so high, we could never repay it?

    • As Begin argued at the time German reparations were being considered, does monetizing pain and suffering trivialize the pain and suffering? How does the question change when those who suffered the pain are no longer living, but when those who are living are still feeling the effects of that pain and suffering?

    And there are probably many other types of considerations. You could call answering these questions "making the case for reparations" because you are providing the justification for intergenerational  reparations and showing how it could work.

    Coates does a bit of this, but mostly he's trying to show the depth and pervasiveness of what was stolen from black people over the centuries, how the thievery took place, and establish the fact that this was a case of thievery and not just bad luck or moral failing. He also shows how black people still suffer from this thievery, e.g., disparate levels of wealth between blacks and whites even when they've achieved the same economic status.

    If you believe that someone who's been robbed is entitled to be repaid or made whole, then I think he's made the case for reparations for black people in broad outline. He hasn't answered every question nor nailed down every detail nor done a full accounting, but he has made the case or the beginning of the case. His proposed first step is passing HR 40, which calls for an investigation, a discussion; it doesn't mandate that Uncle Sam get out his checkbook right now.


    by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 3:42pm

    I'd give Mr. Coates a full PhD for his work in that article. I was blown away by his research Mike. I just, well I wish this were required reading by every single public official, because we simply aren't going to change quickly enough if we don't move to change those institutionally supported bigoted policies we have relied on for so long to keep our fellow American's from achieving all they can.

    When my husband and I bought our first house eons ago in the late 1980's we live in a middle class neighborhood, I was in grad school at the time and my husband was a young engineer working for the Feds. He made the most we'd ever made before, a full 26500.00 a year!! So we bought our first house in a regular neighborhood, we could be considered middle class I think. There was one African American family on our block who clearly made more than any of the rest of us on the block. Kwesie was a senior engineer for the Department of Ecology and his wife was senior social worker with DSHS. I never thought about it back then because I was in my early 20's, but after reading Coates essay I do wonder now, were they victims of those loan practices he described? I'll bet they were. 

    Anyway, I think that essay is a must read. It's that good.


    by tmccarthy0 on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 9:32am

    Black people with upper-middle-class incomes do not generally live in upper-middle-class neighborhoods. Sharkey’s research shows that black families making $100,000 typically live in the kinds of neighborhoods inhabited by white families making $30,000. “Blacks and whites inhabit such different neighborhoods,” Sharkey writes, “that it is not possible to compare the economic outcomes of black and white children.”

    Is the implication that blacks with upper incomes are kept out of upper income (white) neighborhoods? Don't feel comfortable buying there? Are discouraged from buying there? Is redlining still the case?


    by Anonymous PS (not verified) on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 9:35am

    Here is a partial analysis of the situation with the Black Middle class.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-j-leonard/black-middle-class-real...


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 3:08pm

    It is as though we have run up a credit-card bill and, having pledged to charge no more, remain befuddled that the balance does not disappear. The effects of that balance, interest accruing daily, are all around us.

    This is a key point that is often lost.

    It's good enough just to stopping charging new items.


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 9:47am

    But the “wealth building” seminars were a front for wealth theft. In 2010, the Justice Department filed a discrimination suit against Wells Fargo alleging that the bank had shunted blacks into predatory loans regardless of their creditworthiness. This was not magic or coincidence or misfortune. It was racism reifying itself. According to The New York Times, affidavits found loan officers referring to their black customers as “mud people” and to their subprime products as “ghetto loans.”

    Even though these loan officers were clearly racists in a classical sense, the policy they enacted would still have been racist and the officers complicit in racist actions even if they hadn't had a racist bone in their bodies, as the saying goes.

    Yes, ultimately attitudes and beliefs create and drive policy, but policy has a life of its own, and it can be a racist life as we see here. Not every cog in the wheel has to be a racist for the whole machinery to be racist. Asking the cog whether he's racist and examining him for racist beliefs is (almost) pointless.

    To borrow from another discussion, Johnny Reb may not have been thinking about slavery, or even hating on blacks, when he charged into battle, but the battle was still all about racism and slavery.

     


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:05am

    Coates:

    Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.....Reparations beckons us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is—the work of fallible humans.

    America hasn't faced 'the facts of our history' of the last 14 years ....350 years?

    Short of Coates taking over ownership and management of all network TV broadcasters there is little chance of the dawn of a 'revolution of the American consciousness', or of Conyers Bill seeing the light of day in Congress.

    To the 'young black boy' who receives this message from 'his country' ‘You ain’t shit. You not no good." Black leaders, friends and family should be telling him don't believe it. They don't need reparations hearings in Congress to do that, they can start right now


    by NCD on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:18am

    But it helps IF you explore the other side of "debt."

    Someone owes you a lot if you've done a lot for them.

    And it's nice to put a dollar figure on it inasmuch as nothing talks like green.

    Black achievement in building this country has to be hammered home, explored and elaborated and quantified, so that everyone sees it for what it is.

    I think Coates sees this as one big possible outcome from hearings like this.

    It could be a fascinating discussion.

    For example, one point I found fascinating was that the focus of white racism hasn't been the poor, downtrodden black person. Rather, he's been the goal, the perfect intended outcome of the racism.

    Racism's target was the black person who was, as the saying goes, pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. It was the ambitious black person. It was the person who was sending his kids to schools. It was the person determined to buy his own house.

    This insight shines a bright light on the repulsively cruel irony found in the usual lectures directed at blacks--"stay in school," "stop doing drugs," "stop having babies," "get a job and stop asking for hand-outs and you'll get ahead too."


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:39am

    True but isn't it an American tradition to as Coates says 'put crosshairs' on, exploit or take advantage of anyone you can make a buck off of?

    With as little government regulation as possible?  Thanks to the GOP?

    Payday loans, telephone scams, real estate swindles, unsafe car for sale, investment cons, etc, not to mention the big ones like lying the nation into a war resulting in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary casualties?

    Where do you stop? And how do you do it without controlling TV, the predominant discussion and opinion determining mechanism in America today?

    We are impotent at taking care of or preventing exploitation of folks today. We need to focus on the present to make it better, not rehash or talk about Coates story of post WW2 Chicago real estate swindles.


    by NCD on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 1:03pm

    Another thing I'd like to add to the discussion... Coates cites a Post Civil War politician as advocating for reparations because he thought they would serve as economic stimulus in the southern states.  Very clever, I think.

    Could reparations, well designed, be stimulus now?


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:46am

    It would be a stimulus to lawyers, lobbyists or anyone involved in dispensing or handling the money. Kenneth Feinberg comes to mind. But who would pay the bill?


    by NCD on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 1:07pm

    But who would pay the bill?

    This is why I think the discussion of reparations ends up taking us as a nation down the wrong path. Personally I don't feel like I should have to pay for the sins of Mississippi or Chicago.  If Wells Fargo and other banks can be shown to have instituted racist lending practices, they should foot the bill as the ones responsible. 

    In the end, we just get a lot of folks like Scarborough et al talking about the money and not the real issues of institutionalized racism.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 1:25pm

    Not the job creators. Reparations could be used by the GOP to (once again) justify lower corporate taxes and reduced taxes on capital gains to 'increase revenue'.

    Solvency of, and cuts to, Social Security and/or Medicare would be on the table when the tax cuts didn't work.

    TV News would have stories of little old black ladies who got a $47 dollar/month slave reparation, but had their Social Security cut by $67.  All due to Democrats being fooled again by Republicans as to the formulas for compensation.

    A huge expansion of those claiming they are slave descendants would also accompany any cash reparations, along with increased demand to adopt black children (if some of their reparations could be legally used for 'support of the child'). Indian tribes with gambling payouts had similar issues.

    Decisions on how to determine, and how to compensate 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 slave progeny would provide years of litigation and a boon to the legal profession.

    I would also foresee a new industry in Chicago of fake 1950's title documents for that neighborhood Coates talked about if getting shafted by Chicago realtors/banks meant a bigger payout.


    by NCD on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 6:30pm

    I have some ideas about who should pay the bill.  If the financial services industry is guilty of recent crimes (and Coates says they are), I think a transactions tax would be appropriate.

    If I am right and there is direct stimulus to be had here, you could issue Reparations Bonds to be paid off by increased GDP in the future.

    I don't think it'd be just stimulus to the distribution apparatus.

    Reparations don't need to be just checks.  Could be a combination of checks, community development (real estate rehab, broadband to disadvantaged neighborhood) and new business tax credits (transferable in limited circumstances to encourage outside investment).

    Done that way, stimulus benefits would be:

    Increased consumption via direct infusions of cash.

    New jobs as a result of increased consumption.

    Could foster entrepreneurship and investment.

    Raises net worth of individuals by improving housing and commercial real estate.

    If funded by the ultra wealthy financial industry and by forward thinking investors (who are desperately looking for yield) it becomes more than a simple transfer that fails to create value.

    This doesn't answer every question of fairness, of course, but the economy doesn't always care.  Stimulus is stimulus.

     

     


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 7:01pm

    No, it is not a good essay. Too long, too convoluted, too many implications based on unsourced, misleading* and/or cherry-picked facts. In the end Coates does not make his case although he does pluck the heart strings.

    Beyond that the only thing I have to say here about reparations is that I remember wondering if paying them would have been better for the country as a whole than the form Affirmative Action took. Probably not. Possibly even more divisive. And I never really bought into the idea of the sins of the fathers being visited on the sons and certainly not on the daughters.

     

    *Nathaniel Bacon


    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 3:00pm

    misleading* and/or cherry-picked facts

    Where so?


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 3:18pm

    See asterisk and these unsourced facts, for example:

    "Nearly one-fourth of all white Southerners owned slaves, and upon their backs the economic basis of America—and much of the Atlantic world—was erected. In the seven cotton states, one-third of all white income was derived from slavery. By 1840, cotton produced by slave labor constituted 59 percent of the country’s exports."

    I would really like to know where he got his very interesting numbers, not necessarily to dispute them but it is always good to have a secondary source for future reference. 

    But now think about those numbers and how they are presented:

    If "Nearly* one-fourth of all white Southerners owned slaves", then three-fourths (75%) did not.

    If "one-third of all white income was derived from slavery', then two-thirds (66%) was not.

    And yet " upon their backs the economic basis of America—and much of the Atlantic world—was erected."

    It does not add up, does it?

    Also, Coates makes too much of cotton constituting 59 percent of the country's exports in 1840 when what is now called the American school of economics was dominant. Its primary intent was economic independence and national self-sufficiency. Domestic textile manufacturers would have liked the percent being exported to be much, much lower.

     


    by EmmaZahn on Mon, 05/26/2014 - 2:59pm

    You make some interesting points. I'd have to go back and think about it.

    In general, it would have been good to have had footnotes; I agree.

    Also, what makes for good writing here may make for less than great analysis. He homes in on individuals and specific groups, e.g., the Contracts group, which makes for vivid writing, but may hurt his accuracy.

    As to the one third of income, we'd still have to admit that that's a huge chunk of one's income, yes? If I say that one third of my income comes from Client X, then that's a lot and no other one sources might come anywhere close.

     

     


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 05/26/2014 - 5:16pm

    "As to the one third of income, we'd still have to admit that that's a huge chunk of one's income, yes? If I say that one third of my income comes from Client X, then that's a lot and no other one sources might come anywhere close"

    Not really enough information given to say. Again, it would have been helpful to know the original source of the data. 

     


    by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 10:22am

    Tell us about Bacon... I'm ignorant.


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 6:47pm

    Insane?

    Encyclopedia Virginia: Bacon, Nathaniel (1647–1676)

    Some excerpts but read the whole thing. If it were fiction, it would be a comedy of errors.

    • His rebellion erupted in a climate of political and economic uncertainty made worse by a series of Indian attacks. When the governor rebuked Bacon's attempt at reprisals, Bacon ignored him and was removed from the Council, after which he marched a militia to Jamestown. 
    • Bacon's animosity toward the Indians, however, appears to have been the mainspring of his conduct. In September 1675 he seized some friendly Appamattuck Indians whom he accused of stealing corn, for which "rash heady action" the governor rebuked him.
    • Berkeley's denial of the request increased the resentment of the frontier settlers, augmented Bacon's local popularity, and produced a breach between the governor and the councillor after Bacon went ahead with preparations to attack local, friendly Indians.
    • Bacon, meanwhile, led his men southwest to one of the main Occaneechi villages. He persuaded the Occaneechi to attack a nearby party of hostile Susquehannocks, but the allies soon quarreled and, after a pitched battle, Bacon and his men devastated the Occaneechi village.
    • Bacon then marched his men into the Dragon Swamp on the lower reaches of the Rappahannock River, where they attacked the friendly Pamunkey Indians.
    • On the evening of September 18, 1676, Berkeley abandoned Jamestown, and Bacon's men occupied and burned it the next morning. Bacon's forces in and out of Jamestown were by then beyond control. Many of them apparently spent much of their time ransacking the estates of men identified as loyal to the governor.

    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 8:19pm

    Oh my...

    Emma, how do you have such a wide range of knowledge?


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 8:59pm

    Hmmmmm...
     
    I see that Emma is taking umbrage that Coates is "misleading" about Bacon's Rebellion.
     
    Maybe due to the fact that the Rebellion and torching of Jamestown was not initially due to slave holding, in part that's true.
     
    The uprising wasn't initially due to slave holding as pointed out in that Virginia History Emma posted. Bacon initially complained that the Governor was not keeping the colonists safe from attacks by the indigenous of the area.
     
    In my reading of the history, within the "militia" that formed there was an alliance formed between Bacon and former indentured servants and both free former slaves and bond-held slaves that in turn upset the ruling class that held the bonds of servitude. The ruling class then hardened the racial caste of slavery. They tightened it up like a vice.
     
    ~OGD~

    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 9:55pm

    Expanding... "hastened the transition to racial slavery" . . .
     
    Recall Coates' passage that is in question: 
     
    "Some even rebelled together, allying under Nathaniel Bacon to torch Jamestown in 1676."
     
     
     
    Bacon returned to Jamestown later the same month, but this time accompanied by five hundred men. Berkeley was forced to give Bacon the commission, only to later declare that it was void. Bacon, in the meantime, had continued his fight against Indians. When he learned of the Governor's declaration, he headed back to Jamestown. The governor immediately fled, along with a few of his supporters, to Virginia's eastern shore.

    Each leader tried to muster support. Each promised freedom to slaves and servants who would join their cause. But Bacon's following was much greater than Berkeley's. In September of 1676, Bacon and his men set Jamestown on fire.

    The rebellion ended after British authorities sent a royal force to assist in quelling the uprising and arresting scores of committed rebels, white and black. When Bacon suddenly died in October, probably of dysentery, Bacon's Rebellion fizzled out.

    Bacon's Rebellion demonstrated that poor whites and poor blacks could be united in a cause. This was a great fear of the ruling class -- what would prevent the poor from uniting to fight them? This fear hastened the transition to racial slavery.
    Bibliography: Breen, T. H., Stephen Innes. Myne Owne Ground: Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640 - 1676. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

     

    ~OGD~

    .

     


    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Mon, 05/26/2014 - 12:57am

    "Some even rebelled together, allying under Nathaniel Bacon to torch Jamestown in 1676."

    Yes, definitely a misleading sentence. Makes it sound like Bacon revolted against Jamestown (the rulers) but as a paragraph preceding those you excerpted from PBS makes clear, Bacon's motives were less than noble:

    Bacon attracted a large following who, like him, wanted to kill or drive out every Indian in Virginia. In 1675, when Berkeley denied Bacon a commission (the authority to lead soldiers), Bacon took it upon himself to lead his followers in a crusade against the "enemy." They marched to a fort held by a friendly tribe, the Occaneechees, and convinced them to capture warriors from an unfriendly tribe. The Occaneechees returned with captives. Bacon's men killed the captives They then turned to their "allies" and opened fire. 

    That last paragraph from PBS just boggles my mind. So bereft of historical context. At that point in history, the ruling class did not fear the masses, they were still fighting among themselves. King Charles II even "offered to pardon Bacon's lieutenants, whom he characterized as "Persons of mean and desperate Fortunes," if they speedily surrendered. "[vfh]

    As for examples of poor whites and blacks united in common cause, there is no need to go back that far in history. See:

    Southern Tenant Farmers Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    They have an interesting acronym.

     


    by EmmaZahn on Mon, 05/26/2014 - 3:37pm

    Anyone helping you... white wash your fence?

    I guess those Negroes and dumb white indentured servants should never have aligned themselves with Bacon. //snark//

    Maybe my history research back in the late 60s at Old Dominion University in Norfolk and William & Mary has failed me.

    Although, I seriously doubt it.

    ~OGD~


    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Mon, 05/26/2014 - 6:20pm

    I guess those Negroes and dumb white indentured servants should never have aligned themselves with Bacon. //snark//

    In hindsight, I would say not since Bacon up and died on them after which his backers (William Byrd) kissed and made up with Berkeley. But hey, at least they got some useful verbiage for future use.

    I do not have a very high opinion of the Cavaliers who originally settled Jamestown and Charleston so I am skeptical that the rebels would have been any better off even if Bacon had prevailed against Berkeley. Cavaliers came here to make their fortunes and return to England. Many probably would have done so if they had not lost the Crown a few years later. They were the great plantation owners. They created the slave economy of the South. And Bacon was one of them.

    So what did you research back in the late Sixties. Is it published? Online?

     


    by EmmaZahn on Mon, 05/26/2014 - 9:01pm

    Try this again...
     
    Emma said (and correctly):
     
    Cavaliers came here to make their fortunes and return to England. Many probably would have done so if they had not lost the Crown a few years later. They were the great plantation owners. They created the slave economy of the South. And Bacon was one of them.
     
     
    So... What part of this is incorrect?
     
    In my reading of the history, within the "militia" that formed there was an alliance formed between Bacon and former indentured servants and both free former slaves and bond-held slaves that in turn upset the ruling class that held the bonds of servitude. The ruling class then hardened the racial caste of slavery. They tightened it up like a vice.
     
     
    And therefore my //snark//:
     
    I guess those Negroes and dumb white indentured servants should never have aligned themselves with Bacon.
     
     
    And that takes us back to Coates' small nit:
     
    "Some even rebelled together, allying under Nathaniel Bacon to torch Jamestown in 1676."
     
    It's a very small nit, but it's well worth picking.
     
    Have a fine day. I have a garden to tend.
     
    ~OGD~

    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 11:55am

    I'm old? I'm OCD? I read a lot?

    If you know any writers who like to do Aesops to ponder, there is a really good one at the epicenter of the Tulsa Race Riot story. Several days after reading about them, I am still wondering how Dick Rowland, Sarah Page and especially Sheriff Willard McCullough felt about the consequences of the choices they made.

    It is a real-life Trolley Problem.

     


    by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 10:58am

    I tend to use a mixture of higher order concepts and pragmatism to make decisions. Justice is one of those higher order concepts I believe in. Justice demands I support reparations for black folks. But is it pragmatic?

    Some have said we need a national discussion on race. I agree but I don't see how we can have one. Coates thinks a debate about reparations will initiate that national conversation. Maybe for the highly educated elites but I doubt the mass of Americans will take part in it.

    I don't agree with emma but there's one phrase from her post that will define this national discussion in the minds of most people, "Too long, too convoluted." Most people don't have or won't take the time to understand that long and convoluted story. They will only get the simple story, the one the GOP politicizes.

    What's the downside for the republicans making reparations a political issue and fighting it hand and foot? 97% of black folks won't vote for them? We're already there. Liberals won't vote for them? We're willing to vote for Obama rather  than a republican. What exactly do the republicans have to lose fighting this issue?

    No matter how much money blacks get they will be worse off after the political fall out. Not that the money is even a consideration because no matter how much political capital the democrats spend on it reparations will never happen as long as the republicans control the house. And the discussion will insure that there's a republican house for as long as we can envision time.

    Hillary seems to get a nice sized chunk of the white working class vote. Imagine her or any other democratic presidential candidate being asked for their view on reparations. How many white working class votes would she lose supporting it. Much as I hate to say it liberals, blacks and hispanics can't elect a president alone. And that assumes that democrats wouldn't lose some hispanic vote too if we support reparations. A very dubious assumption.

    Right now any republican official looking at Coates essay is practically drooling as he chants, "Please democrats make reparations an issue preferably before the 2016 election, Please democrats make reparations an issue preferably before the 2016 election, Please democrats make reparations an issue preferably before the 2016 election"

    If black people decide they want to push this issue they've earned the right to do so and they've earned my support for at least the last hundred years of racism including that which they are experiencing today. Because, justice. If that's the choice they want to make I'll support them even though pragmatically I can't think of a worse issue to fight going into the 2016 election.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:07pm

    As a way of agreeing, conservatives in Congress have just "fixed" surveillance by making worse.

    Opening stuff up for "study" without a concrete agenda is just begging the guys who live by radical agendas to come in and co-opt the debate.

    If there's a real plan for reparations that has a chance of doing some good, that could accomplish even 50% of what's proposed, lay it out - after the next general elections.

    But I have trouble believing that folks who support reparations can't get concrete after all this time, but are going to put it on the table to "discuss" and leave it to someone else to fill in the details. Sounds like a recipe for disaster - should Democrats be asking the Republicans to hold more hearings on Benghazi?


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/27/2014 - 1:57pm