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| Home Front: Politix |
| Fear The Reparations Backlash |
| 2019-03-13 |
| [The Week] Democrats running for president in 2020 have already endorsed a long list of ambitious, controversial policies: The Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all, free college, the breakup of tech companies, and more. But one proposal belongs in a different category because it would seek to address the gravest injustice in American history. I'm talking about reparations for African-American descendants of slaves. The idea of compensating Americans whose ancestors were brought to the New World by force and held in bondage for as long as 250 years has been debated numerous times in American history. The most recent case for reparations came in 2014 in the form of a powerful, deeply reported essay in The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Democratic presidential hopefuls aiming to stand out from the crowd have begun championing the cause. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and former Obama administration official Julian Castro, are already on board. The fact that David Brooks, a moderately conservative New York Times columnist who has taken recent swipes at both the Green New Deal and Medicare-for-all, has now endorsed the policy as well is a sign of just how mainstream it has become. The moral case for reparations may be strong, but the political and cultural consequences of enacting the policy are likely to be extremely high. Far from serving as a moment of moral reckoning and healing for the country, as its advocates contend, it would inspire a severe backlash that would inflame tensions on both sides of the color line ‐ and set the stage for future calls from other groups for acts of public restitution for past injustices. It's a recipe for greatly intensified civic anger and resentment. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #7 Only a moron would think otherwise... So, about 50% of the electorate. |
| Posted by: charger 2019-03-13 15:56 |
| #6 What it comes down to is, they want the massive redistribution, but no way are they going to finish up by saying, "OK, that squares it, we will never bring it up again." Only a moron would think otherwise... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2019-03-13 15:24 |
| #5 Maybe all this reparations talk is a massive PR effort to promote all the ancestry DNA products out there. I bet you could find massive injustices to your ancestors no matter what color your skin. |
| Posted by: warthogswife 2019-03-13 11:18 |
| #4 Let the donks keep their platform just the way it is. That way we know they'll lose in 2020. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2019-03-13 10:54 |
| #3 Well, if this reparations thing goes through, I think I might identify as black. |
| Posted by: gorb 2019-03-13 10:52 |
| #2 brought to the New World by force and held in bondage for as long as 250 years Damn, bottle that stuff and sell it as the fountain of youth elixer. 250 years? That's gotta be worth a bloody fortune. /s |
| Posted by: AlanC 2019-03-13 08:43 |
| #1 Tennessee Tuxedo is a life-long racist who, had his skin been paler, would have been at home as a Klansman. No one alive today has been held as a slave under the laws of the United States. No one alive today has legally owned slaves under the laws of the United States. No one is around who is owed reparations and no one is around who owes them. Yeah, Jim Crow laws were shit. Prevailing wage and union-only laws were as well. So what? Until the "Great Society" and "War on Poverty", blacks were improving their lot the same way all Americans do: generation by generation. FFS, it's not like mainstream America hides the secret to success -- no illegal drugs, wait for marriage, get as educated as you can stand, and work hard. The attitude that you're owed ANYTHING because of what you THINK you ancestors went through is ludicrous -- because the rest of us came from the serfs, peasants, religious outcasts, and unwanted from the rest of the world. Our ancestors came here, dealt with ostracism and bigotry, and made our way into the mainstream. So buck up, stop feeling sorry for yourselves, get rid of the pot, stop taking on thugs as role models, stay in school, keep your legs together, and join the party. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2019-03-13 08:16 |