The UN demands the US pay Reparations

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rexlunae

New member
Traditio said:
I am embarrassed now. I was in error about the federal jobs thing. Roughly 17-18% of federal employees are black, given a cursory google search. That said, black people are only roughly 13% of the US population.
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I'm glad that you're embarrassed. You should be. But then, you also have the sense to be embarrassed about it, which is somewhat redeeming.

As for why black people might be over-represented in federal employment compared to their proportion of the population in general, I would suggest that it may be a result of the robust legal protections that they have against discrimination in that context. There's good research indicating that in the economy in general, job applicants having "black sounding" names are far less likely to get a call back for a job interview. You go where people will hire you.

Traditio said:
I may or may not be in error about the college thing.
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Well, I don't believe that there's a single federal program that's race-exclusive. Some colleges give preferences to racial minorities to increase their diversity because they recognize that its in their best interests.

Traditio said:
That said, because black people tend to be poorer, they do tend to get higher pell grants, at least, I think that's true.
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The fundamental racial disparity there is that black people tend to be poorer, and the rest flows from that fact in a racially agnostic way. That's not an advantage for black people, except in a fairly narrow way.

Traditio said:
[I think that this is ridiculous, by the way. Why should the parents' income matter (unless we are talking about wealthy parents) when it comes to how much the student gets in terms of federal funding? Lower middle class families get the short end of the stick on this. They aren't particularly able to pay for their children to go to college, but their children don't get as much federal funding because the government magically deems them of a higher ability to pay. :rolleyes:]
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I somewhat agree. There is, after all, no mechanism that guarantees that wealthier parents will pay for their children's college. However, the purpose of programs like the Pell grants is to mitigate the intergenerational wealth advantages, and increase social and economic mobility for people at a disadvantage. Those are generally positive goals, which may be meaningfully advanced with means tests.
 
Mark M

Mark M

New member
Traditio said:
This almost makes me want to vote for Donald Trump. Almost. If only so that he could tell them where to shove their proposals.



In addition to demanding that reparations be paid in the form of enhanced social services, etc. specifically targeted to black people (as though that weren't racist at all!), they also take issue with stand your ground laws and with US states that forbid convicted felons from voting.

They also take issue with law enforcement.

Hey, liberals, I have a better idea: you don't want people from a certain demographic to get shot? Encourage them not to commit violent crimes. Encourage them to avoid making others feel the need to invoke their basic right of self-defense.

You don't want black people to get barred from voting because they are felons? Encourage them to stop committing felony crimes. :rolleyes:
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What gives them the right or the authority to do this?
 
R

rexlunae

New member
Traditio said:
In the previous thread to which I was referring, RexLunae's argument was essentially this:

Either the cause of inequality between black people and non-black people in terms of arrest rates, sentencing, etc. is because of society/the system, or else, because of black people.

The latter is racist. Therefore, the former is the case.

In other words:

Either agree with me, or else, you're a racist bigot.
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There has never in the history of the United States been a time when black people really got a fair chance at success in this country. Slavery may have formally ended in the mid-19th century, but legal discrimination continued long after that. And we aren't just talking about not being able to use the same restrooms and drinking fountains. We're talking about laws that sought to recreate the restricted freedom of slavery without formal chattel ownership. The FHA followed formal, intentional, undisguised segregationist policies until 1968, when my parents were adults. Given that there's good research showing that poverty has inter-generational effects regardless of race, and given that black poor people are even easier to discriminate against that other poor people, and that our country has had centuries of practice stereotyping and building mechanisms to hold back black people, and only decades trying to change that, I think that the burden of proof is entirely on anyone who claims that black people have had a fair shot at success. The changes that have abolished laws that legally discriminated are much more recent than a lot of people would like to believe.
 
ok doser

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
rexlunae said:
There has never in the history of the United States been a time when black people really got a fair chance at success in this country.
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nonsense - my ancestors were helping frederick douglas publish the north star back in 1847
 
The Berean

The Berean

Well-known member
Selaphiel said:
While I am no hip hop fan, there are plenty of good hip hop that provide good social criticism. There is hip hop that isn't 50 cent or Dr.Dre.

Also, you forgot to mention two other musical genres dominated by black culture: Jazz and blues.

There are finer things out there than Metallica.



Because that has no connection to living in poverty due to injustice.



Sub-cultures with specific language is not a black thing, it is a human thing.

There is little doubt that your comments are quite racist, at least implicitly.

Seriously, you are supposed to be a philosopher, what happened to your critical faculty?
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Before hip hop became "mainstrain" that's what hip hop was for the most part, talking about the daily life in the ghetto. It was a form of social and political commentary and criticism. This 1982 video is brilliant. No profanity, no misogyny, no glorification of violence, no gyrating women wearing thongs.

.
 
Traditio

Traditio

BANNED
Banned
Selaphiel said:
While I am no hip hop fan, there are plenty of good hip hop that provide good social criticism. There is hip hop that isn't 50 cent or Dr.Dre.
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Be that as it may, this speaks absolutely nothing to its quality as music. There may be excellent poets in the hip hop genre (I doubt this). There may be excellent social commentators in the hip hop genre (I doubt this). But there are no good musicians in the hip hop genre.

Also, you forgot to mention two other musical genres dominated by black culture: Jazz and blues.
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Jazz and blues are excellent! But the question here is whether the blacks owe reparations, or else, whether we owe reparations. In order to answer that, we must ask whether blacks have cost more than they have produced, or whether they have produced more than they have cost.

And I consider hip hop and the hip hop culture a MASSIVE cost in comparison to jazz and the blues, which are comparatively minor gains on their part. :p

Because that has no connection to living in poverty due to injustice.
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Sure, because all of the black criminality rates can be reduced to being poor. For example, rape. For example, murder. For example, absolutely any other violent crime which is not theft-related. For example, the possession of narcotics and other illegal drugs for the purpose of recreational use.

Not to mention, of course, that black people really can't complain that they need to commit crime in order to have means of survival. Welfare is a thing. At least some black people not only make use of it, but abuse it by fraud.

No. Every black on white crime, Selaphiel, is a compelling evidence that whites don't owe reparations...except, perhaps, to send those black people back to Africa and wipe our hands of them once and for all.

RexLunae has to appeal to ancient history to assert that they've been useful to us. That, in and of itself, speaks volumes.

Sub-cultures with specific language is not a black thing, it is a human thing.
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And I consider those sub-cultures a "cost" in the total tally. Those sub cultures make life just a little bit more annoying for me. :rolleyes:
 
Traditio

Traditio

BANNED
Banned
GuySmiley said:
Reparations = (Earnings that would have been obtained had ancestor been left alone) - (Earnings obtained by ancestor being taken a slave)
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See? Black people owe us reparations. Perhaps they could work it off by means of free manual labor...*:think:




*But, of course, I speak in jest.
 
ok doser

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
Traditio said:
... black people have been completely useless for roughly the past 50 years.
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well, not all of them :Shimei:


x-men-storm.jpg
 
Traditio

Traditio

BANNED
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rexlunae said:
There has never in the history of the United States been a time when black people really got a fair chance at success in this country. Slavery may have formally ended in the mid-19th century, but legal discrimination continued long after that. And we aren't just talking about not being able to use the same restrooms and drinking fountains. We're talking about laws that sought to recreate the restricted freedom of slavery without formal chattel ownership. The FHA followed formal, intentional, undisguised segregationist policies until 1968, when my parents were adults. Given that there's good research showing that poverty has inter-generational effects regardless of race, and given that black poor people are even easier to discriminate against that other poor people, and that our country has had centuries of practice stereotyping and building mechanisms to hold back black people, and only decades trying to change that, I think that the burden of proof is entirely on anyone who claims that black people have had a fair shot at success. The changes that have abolished laws that legally discriminated are much more recent than a lot of people would like to believe.
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RexLunae:

Let us suppose that everything that you've just said is perfectly true. Let us assume that.

Nonetheless, what you've said is irrelevant to the point which was at issue, i.e., whether black persons are unjustly treated by the legal system. Let us suppose that I grant your claim that "the burden of proof is entirely on anyone who claims that black people have had a fair shot at success."

Nonetheless, that wasn't the claim under dispute. The claim under dispute is whether black people are unjustly treated by judges, policemen, etc...

To which your argument was, in effect:

"Agree with me that they are, or else, you're a racist bigot."

Sorry, but I'm not convinced.

In order to convince me otherwise, you have to point me to a particular black person who has committed a particular crime, and show me, e.g., that he received a sentence that he didn't deserve for his crime, e.g., because the judge was racist. Unless and until you can do that, you have no case.
 
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