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Much more than single digit billions. This, and redlining, are the core of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s very compelling argument for reparations on the order of trillion

Much more than single digit billions. This, and redlining, are the core of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s very compelling argument for reparations on the order of trillions in 2017 dollars. We’ll never do it, of course, but it would be the moral and just thing. It’d probably have a positive effect on the economy, too, but Trump voters wouldn’t stand for it.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
Thank you. I had not heard of that. It tends to go poorly to try to fix such things with money per se. I saw a thing on TV years ago about someone rich whose will stated their estate should be spent on something like medical care for blacks. Nope, it didn't happen. A different show indicated someone gifted an island to the black slave descendents. It was being profiled because they would sell their land, blow the money on a car or whatever and ...it just did not give these folks access to real wealth and power. Kind of like the "Black Wall Street." Whites burned it down, then instituted new building codes to prevent them from rebuilding. The excuse was these were fire safety codes. The reality was it burned down because whites burned it down, not because the buildings were defective in some manner. But I wonder if perhaps smaller initiatives that aren't simply a case of throwing money at the problem might grow out of the growing realization that, no, seriously, they are poor because they were denied access to the means to not be poor, not due to ignorance, laziness, etc. My off the cuff thought is that someone should start a no money down mortgage program for descendents of people of color who were veterans of WW2. Maybe even our government.
- mercutio2 9y ago
  Coates’s proposal isn’t (much) money in individual pockets, it’s very much like you suggest, subsidies and capital infrastructure. Like I said, pretty compelling arguments and plan.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    I was just kind of thinking out loud. I should probably look the thing up. I have zero familiarity with it. I only recently heard of the very low numbers I cited above and have been feeling like "Damn! Someone should do something to redress this!" And then you said your thing and my big feels and half baked idea came spilling out. It very much upsets me. My dad was career army and fought in WW2. I grew up in a nice house in the suburbs financed by the GI Bill. My dad was part Cherokee. Only about 1/16th, but there is an actor who is full blooded Iroquois who looks uncannily like my father in some photos. Dad was very white passing. But then about 70 percent of African American DNA is European. In the US, if you are 1/8th African, you are "black." It is very arbitrary. So, I find myself pretty incensed. It hits a nerve for me.
  - Noos 9y ago
    And I doubt Coates ever thinks that it would just line the pockets of the corrupt, either. He's a very naive thinker.
rsanheim 9y ago
> Much more than single digit billions. Yes, this 10x over: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas... The fact that american politicians can't even have a conversation about reparations is a disgrace.
pfisch 9y ago
Why would people be entitled to reparations because of lack of access to credit? Easy access to credit is not a fundamental human right. Also the lenders are often private businesses, so wouldn't they be liable.
- allenz 9y ago
  Reparations are warranted for institutional discrimination, which is unjust and now illegal. It wasn't just loans, but a systemic, society-wide practice of minimizing investment in black neighborhoods, causing (among other things) large inequalities in home values and therefore wealth between white and black neighborhoods. If we have affirmative action for education, why not affirmative investment too? While private lenders were responsible, it's difficult to make them to do anything, so we have to look to the government to right this wrong.
Noos 9y ago
"That won't do nothing but make Cadillac the number-one dealership in the country" Cedric the Entertainer, Barbershop (2002). I'd also point out the effects of allowing casinos for Native American tribes, too. Money doesn't always help.
- mercutio2 9y ago
  There’s no reason reparations would need to be dominated by direct cash payments. Infrastructure, capital improvements, investment in schools, scholarships, and subsidies that historically white people got but black folks didn’t would be great, and wouldn’t involve any more Cadillacs.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

Thank you. I had not heard of that. It tends to go poorly to try to fix such things with money per se. I saw a thing on TV years ago about someone rich whose will stated their estate should be spent on something like medical care for blacks. Nope, it didn't happen. A different show indicated someone gifted an island to the black slave descendents. It was being profiled because they would sell their land, blow the money on a car or whatever and ...it just did not give these folks access to real wealth and power. Kind of like the "Black Wall Street." Whites burned it down, then instituted new building codes to prevent them from rebuilding. The excuse was these were fire safety codes. The reality was it burned down because whites burned it down, not because the buildings were defective in some manner. But I wonder if perhaps smaller initiatives that aren't simply a case of throwing money at the problem might grow out of the growing realization that, no, seriously, they are poor because they were denied access to the means to not be poor, not due to ignorance, laziness, etc. My off the cuff thought is that someone should start a no money down mortgage program for descendents of people of color who were veterans of WW2. Maybe even our government.

mercutio2 9y ago
Coates’s proposal isn’t (much) money in individual pockets, it’s very much like you suggest, subsidies and capital infrastructure. Like I said, pretty compelling arguments and plan.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  I was just kind of thinking out loud. I should probably look the thing up. I have zero familiarity with it. I only recently heard of the very low numbers I cited above and have been feeling like "Damn! Someone should do something to redress this!" And then you said your thing and my big feels and half baked idea came spilling out. It very much upsets me. My dad was career army and fought in WW2. I grew up in a nice house in the suburbs financed by the GI Bill. My dad was part Cherokee. Only about 1/16th, but there is an actor who is full blooded Iroquois who looks uncannily like my father in some photos. Dad was very white passing. But then about 70 percent of African American DNA is European. In the US, if you are 1/8th African, you are "black." It is very arbitrary. So, I find myself pretty incensed. It hits a nerve for me.
- Noos 9y ago
  And I doubt Coates ever thinks that it would just line the pockets of the corrupt, either. He's a very naive thinker.

rsanheim 9y ago

> Much more than single digit billions. Yes, this 10x over: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas... The fact that american politicians can't even have a conversation about reparations is a disgrace.

pfisch 9y ago

Why would people be entitled to reparations because of lack of access to credit? Easy access to credit is not a fundamental human right. Also the lenders are often private businesses, so wouldn't they be liable.

allenz 9y ago
Reparations are warranted for institutional discrimination, which is unjust and now illegal. It wasn't just loans, but a systemic, society-wide practice of minimizing investment in black neighborhoods, causing (among other things) large inequalities in home values and therefore wealth between white and black neighborhoods. If we have affirmative action for education, why not affirmative investment too? While private lenders were responsible, it's difficult to make them to do anything, so we have to look to the government to right this wrong.

Noos 9y ago

"That won't do nothing but make Cadillac the number-one dealership in the country" Cedric the Entertainer, Barbershop (2002). I'd also point out the effects of allowing casinos for Native American tribes, too. Money doesn't always help.

mercutio2 9y ago
There’s no reason reparations would need to be dominated by direct cash payments. Infrastructure, capital improvements, investment in schools, scholarships, and subsidies that historically white people got but black folks didn’t would be great, and wouldn’t involve any more Cadillacs.