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How is it completely bonkers? I think the idea is that those people were put at inherent disadvantage due to unfair treatment of their long gone predecessors.

How is it completely bonkers? I think the idea is that those people were put at inherent disadvantage due to unfair treatment of their long gone predecessors. Or at least that’s my understanding of it. The validity of this claim, type and amount of corrective action (and from some viewpoints - its very appropriateness or necessity), as well as the relative importance of the subject - those can all be a matter of debate, but are any of those so obvious they render the whole idea crazy?

vintermann 1y ago
I found out my son is a descendant of slaves. I am not, but his mother is from a family with a few upper class connections, and in one of them there was a Danish slave ship captain, who married a "free woman of color" on St. Croix and moved to Norway. "The Creole Woman" was a family legend told to me by his great-grandmother, but I checked, and it was completely true. Apparently it's really common in Denmark to be a descendant of slaves in a similar way. I think it's obviously ludicrous that my son should be entitled to corrective action for this. Yes, his ancestor was subjected to an injustice, but it completely drowns in the sea of other injustices or unfair advantages his ancestors have had. If you want to sum up the historical injustice and unearned privilege someone's ancestors had, it's much better to look at their bank account than their pedigree. DoS-restitution suggests that but for transatlantic slavery, the present distribution of resources would have been just. The further back you are willing to go in asserting the right to restitution, the more forcefully you are asserting it. As a practical matter, you have to have some level of material comfort and/or solid family relationships to be able to document your ancestry. That already biases it away from those who would need it most.
- drdaeman 1y ago
  First of all, to avoid misunderstanding, let me explicitly say that I agree with a lot of things in your comment. But my question was not about whenever far descendants of slaves need (or need not) to be compensated somehow. It was about the "completely bonkers" bit. Possibly, it was a mistake to reiterate the idea to ensure it is consistently understood - the third paragraph (specifically, the emphasized part) of my comment was the point, not the second one. We have an insanely complex system composed of multiple societies that may or may not exhibit some behaviors because of some antecedent events. Yet, GP didn't say e.g. "but it completely drowns" (essentially, claiming statistical insignificance) or that their understanding of possible corrective action has questionable effects (like @modo_mario's neighbor comment about universities), but rather that the whole thing has no rational basis to it ("bonkers") whatsoever ("completely"). This is something that I don't think I understand and that concerns me. Not whenever someone needs a preferential treatment for some injustices of the past (not that the latter doesn't concern me, but way less significantly).
  - wtcactus 1y ago
    Let me re-iterate as well. Yes, it's completely bonkers. Starting by the fact that these descendants have now a much higher living standard than if their ancestor was left in the respective African country they originated from, where they were sold by their own neighbouring tribes to Arab slavers that then sold them off to be carried to the new world. So, no it has no rational basis because, 1st, if you compare this people off with the alternative (their ancestors never left Africa centuries ago), they would be much worse off today. And 2nd, why are you expecting the last link of the slave trade to pay for compensation, but not the people that actually made them slaves and the people that traded them to Europeans? Shall Nigeria start paying compensations to these people? After all, many of their ancestors were enslaved by Nigerian tribes? Shall Arab nations start paying compensations to them as well? Shall Romans start paying me compensations for invading what is now my country? What about Arabs (yes, they were also here), should they?
    - drdaeman 1y ago
      I must be misunderstanding the term "bonkers" then. By all means, I wholeheartedly agree that some arbitrarily-selected single factor that was present a long while ago is extremely questionable to be any meaningfully relevant, given that there were so many other things affecting it all. I also totally agree that there's a host of other issues and questions. However, I fail to see immediate unsoundness in the basic premises that would make it bonkers, in a way I understand the word in this context ("not mentally sound, with an element of derogatory"). Generally speaking, momentarily going outside of scope of slavery - the idea that if some group was put at significant disadvantage, that could negatively affect them and their ancestry, is - at the very least - not obviously unsound, right? I think I've read that there are experiments that demonstrate this could be a thing, so I hope I'm not misinformed here. So - back to slavery - exploring whenever it's the case for slave descendants is not obviously invalid. There could be arguments around the methodology, e.g. you have made a point about the reference group. But if we go as far as actually devising an experiment and looking at the outcomes (those who left are worse off, assuming it's true) does not it make it sound enough to not be bonkers? I mean, for this to be just crazy the core premise must be flawed, and it's not - even if it can be shown to be false. Especially so if this sparks further debate about methodology. And then if someone is disadvantaged for any reason, it can be valid to ponder the idea whenever it should (or shouldn't) be addressed somehow, right? At least I fail to see how this question could be somehow fundamentally flawed either. Summarized, I hear your arguments and they look valid to me (and I agree!), but I still fail to see how the fundamental premises that led to such line of thought are "bonkers", even if they're false.
PeterStuer 1y ago
Would you then not just focus on helping currently disadvantaged people, rather than some ancestry chase that might or might not be presently relevant?
KoolKat23 1y ago
Sorry, it's completely bonkers. How long is a piece of string?
modo_mario 1y ago
The world is filled with such qualms. People are quick to feel slighted and counterreact. For example if the uni decided to make it more financially manageable by letting those decendants in easier suddenly it starts mirroring the stories of asian and white students needing higher scores to get in that caused an outrage. Giving money because of some modern day one drop rule ends up no different. It will also always be a mess even if you do compensate. See at the fights about who gets native american tribe status and benefits. On one hand you have people actually struggling with the faults of the past. On the other hand there's groups of people who genuinely believe it's them that bear the costs of the past with less measurable ancestral ties than the average african american looking to benefit decrying what happened.
- Simulacra 1y ago
  People are quick to feel slighted and counterreact. People are quick to stand in line for money.

vintermann 1y ago

I found out my son is a descendant of slaves. I am not, but his mother is from a family with a few upper class connections, and in one of them there was a Danish slave ship captain, who married a "free woman of color" on St. Croix and moved to Norway. "The Creole Woman" was a family legend told to me by his great-grandmother, but I checked, and it was completely true. Apparently it's really common in Denmark to be a descendant of slaves in a similar way. I think it's obviously ludicrous that my son should be entitled to corrective action for this. Yes, his ancestor was subjected to an injustice, but it completely drowns in the sea of other injustices or unfair advantages his ancestors have had. If you want to sum up the historical injustice and unearned privilege someone's ancestors had, it's much better to look at their bank account than their pedigree. DoS-restitution suggests that but for transatlantic slavery, the present distribution of resources would have been just. The further back you are willing to go in asserting the right to restitution, the more forcefully you are asserting it. As a practical matter, you have to have some level of material comfort and/or solid family relationships to be able to document your ancestry. That already biases it away from those who would need it most.

drdaeman 1y ago
First of all, to avoid misunderstanding, let me explicitly say that I agree with a lot of things in your comment. But my question was not about whenever far descendants of slaves need (or need not) to be compensated somehow. It was about the "completely bonkers" bit. Possibly, it was a mistake to reiterate the idea to ensure it is consistently understood - the third paragraph (specifically, the emphasized part) of my comment was the point, not the second one. We have an insanely complex system composed of multiple societies that may or may not exhibit some behaviors because of some antecedent events. Yet, GP didn't say e.g. "but it completely drowns" (essentially, claiming statistical insignificance) or that their understanding of possible corrective action has questionable effects (like @modo_mario's neighbor comment about universities), but rather that the whole thing has no rational basis to it ("bonkers") whatsoever ("completely"). This is something that I don't think I understand and that concerns me. Not whenever someone needs a preferential treatment for some injustices of the past (not that the latter doesn't concern me, but way less significantly).
- wtcactus 1y ago
  Let me re-iterate as well. Yes, it's completely bonkers. Starting by the fact that these descendants have now a much higher living standard than if their ancestor was left in the respective African country they originated from, where they were sold by their own neighbouring tribes to Arab slavers that then sold them off to be carried to the new world. So, no it has no rational basis because, 1st, if you compare this people off with the alternative (their ancestors never left Africa centuries ago), they would be much worse off today. And 2nd, why are you expecting the last link of the slave trade to pay for compensation, but not the people that actually made them slaves and the people that traded them to Europeans? Shall Nigeria start paying compensations to these people? After all, many of their ancestors were enslaved by Nigerian tribes? Shall Arab nations start paying compensations to them as well? Shall Romans start paying me compensations for invading what is now my country? What about Arabs (yes, they were also here), should they?
  - drdaeman 1y ago
    I must be misunderstanding the term "bonkers" then. By all means, I wholeheartedly agree that some arbitrarily-selected single factor that was present a long while ago is extremely questionable to be any meaningfully relevant, given that there were so many other things affecting it all. I also totally agree that there's a host of other issues and questions. However, I fail to see immediate unsoundness in the basic premises that would make it bonkers, in a way I understand the word in this context ("not mentally sound, with an element of derogatory"). Generally speaking, momentarily going outside of scope of slavery - the idea that if some group was put at significant disadvantage, that could negatively affect them and their ancestry, is - at the very least - not obviously unsound, right? I think I've read that there are experiments that demonstrate this could be a thing, so I hope I'm not misinformed here. So - back to slavery - exploring whenever it's the case for slave descendants is not obviously invalid. There could be arguments around the methodology, e.g. you have made a point about the reference group. But if we go as far as actually devising an experiment and looking at the outcomes (those who left are worse off, assuming it's true) does not it make it sound enough to not be bonkers? I mean, for this to be just crazy the core premise must be flawed, and it's not - even if it can be shown to be false. Especially so if this sparks further debate about methodology. And then if someone is disadvantaged for any reason, it can be valid to ponder the idea whenever it should (or shouldn't) be addressed somehow, right? At least I fail to see how this question could be somehow fundamentally flawed either. Summarized, I hear your arguments and they look valid to me (and I agree!), but I still fail to see how the fundamental premises that led to such line of thought are "bonkers", even if they're false.

PeterStuer 1y ago

Would you then not just focus on helping currently disadvantaged people, rather than some ancestry chase that might or might not be presently relevant?

KoolKat23 1y ago

Sorry, it's completely bonkers. How long is a piece of string?

modo_mario 1y ago

The world is filled with such qualms. People are quick to feel slighted and counterreact. For example if the uni decided to make it more financially manageable by letting those decendants in easier suddenly it starts mirroring the stories of asian and white students needing higher scores to get in that caused an outrage. Giving money because of some modern day one drop rule ends up no different. It will also always be a mess even if you do compensate. See at the fights about who gets native american tribe status and benefits. On one hand you have people actually struggling with the faults of the past. On the other hand there's groups of people who genuinely believe it's them that bear the costs of the past with less measurable ancestral ties than the average african american looking to benefit decrying what happened.

Simulacra 1y ago
People are quick to feel slighted and counterreact. People are quick to stand in line for money.