More Reverse Racialism from Universities

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

First that's relative harm, not harm and second, that's not true. It is a well-established fact that the US economy benefited from slavery.

How is it well-established? According to whom?

Historians who use facts of history.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I cannot help it if you are ignorant.

If the horse isn't left in the will to my daughter, then my daughter isn't going to get the horse. It isn't automatically some 'free legacy passed down'.

When a person dies without having a valid will in place, his or her property passes by what is called "intestate succession" to heirs according to state law. In other words, if you don't have a will, the state will make one for you. All fifty states have laws (or "statutes") of this kind on the books.

The purpose of intestate succession statutes is to distribute the decedent's wealth in a manner that closely represents how the average person would have designed his or her estate plan, had that person had a will. However, this default can differ dramatically from what the person really would have wanted. Even where it is known what the person intended, no exceptions are made where no valid will exists. Nor are there any exceptions made based on need or special circumstances.

1990 UNIFORM PROBATE CODE

The 1990 Uniform Probate Code (the Code) serves as the starting point for many states' laws. Nevertheless, the laws of different states can vary greatly from each other and from the Code itself. However, the Code represents the best reference for a general discussion.

Under the Code, close relatives take property instead of distant relatives. The classes of relatives whose members receive property under the Code include the decedent's surviving spouse, descendents (children, grandchildren, etc.), parents, descendents of decedent's parents (siblings, nieces and nephews), grandparents, and descendents of grandparents (aunts and uncles and cousins). Adopted descendents are treated the same as biological descendents. If none of the above-named classes of relatives include any persons qualified to take the estate, the property "escheats" (goes by default) to the state.

http://estate.findlaw.com/planning-...estacy-if-you-die-without-an-estate-plan.html

Dance around the issue, then. This is your thread; if you don't want to discuss anything (which is seeming more and more the case given your latest replies), I'm fine counting this a loss.

People generally find it ethical to pass on the inheritance regardless of a will. Why do you think they made laws about it?

 

[JonA]

Given the nonsense you started this thread with and your latest replies to myself and Metaphor, I'm going to conclude you're not really looking for a discussion.

Congratulations, though; you've definitely proven yourself the least racist person in history.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You completely lost the argument you started. Congratulations.

 

[JonA]

You completely lost the argument you started. Congratulations.

Says the man who answers a request for evidence with "historians who use facts of history"...

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You completely lost the argument you started. Congratulations.

Says the man who answers a request for evidence with "historians who use facts of history"...

It's like someone asking re:global warming "how is it well-established? according to whom?" and me answering "scientists who use facts." I know it's snarky but it's a valid answer. I am not going to invest all my time in proving something well-established. I have better things to do. If you don't want to be ignorant of well-established facts, go look it up.

 

[JonA]

If you don't want to be ignorant of well-established facts, go look it up.

And if you don't want to actually discuss and defend your position on a topic, don't start a thread on it.

Or were you just looking to hear your echo?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

If you don't want to be ignorant of well-established facts, go look it up.

And if you don't want to actually discuss and defend your position on a topic, don't start a thread on it.

Or were you just looking to hear your echo?

A thread isn't necessarily about stating a political position to sit around and argue. I posted news and made a parody out of a position on it. The only interesting thing is that you agree with much of the parody like you did in the upskirt thread. Unfathomable, not exactly. Otherwise, there'd be no such thing as a Poe.

 

[Axulus]

How is it well-established? According to whom?

Historians who use facts of history.

The south sure has a much richer economic position today thanks to slavery, in contracts to the poorer, slave free north. The decedents living in the south today are grateful for the economic boon passed down to them.

 

[Axulus]

Consider a recent, much-publicized study of social mobility by economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues at Harvard and Berkeley. As the illuminating map generated by that study shows, children born in some regions—Salt Lake City and San Jose, Calif., for example—have a reasonable shot of moving up the social ladder. By contrast, many parts of the former Confederacy, it seems, are now the places where the American dream goes to die.

Why is that true? At first blush, you might guess race could explain the variation. When the study’s authors crunched the data, they found that the larger the black population in any given county, the lower the overall social mobility. But there was more to the story than blacks unable to break the cycle of poverty. In a passing comment, Chetty and his co-authors observed that “both blacks and whites living in areas with large African-American populations have lower rates of upward income mobility.” Far from being divergent, the fates of poor blacks and poor whites in these regions are curiously, inextricably, intertwined.

Instead of chalking it up to race, recent research points toward a more startling and somewhat controversial explanation: When we see broad areas of inequality in America today, what we are actually seeing is the lingering stain of slavery. Since 2002, with increasing refinement in the years since, economic historians have argued that the “peculiar institution,” as it was once called, is dead but not gone. Today, in the 21st century, it still casts an economic shadow over both blacks and whites: “Slavery,” writes Harvard economist Nathan Nunn, “had a long-term effect on inequality as well as income.”

...

His work is representative of a new, more historical direction within economics. Its proponents believe that institutions devised centuries ago tend to persist, structuring economic reality in the 21st century in ways that are largely invisible. Their hope is that, by tracing these connections between past and present, they may be able to point the way toward more effective solutions to today’s seemingly intractable economic problems.Harvard economist Nathan Nunn offered a more detailed statistical analysis of this “Engerman-Sokoloff hypothesis” in a paper first published in 2008. His research confirmed that early slave use in the Americas was correlated with poor long-term growth. More specifically, he examined county-level data on slavery and inequality in the United States, and found a robust correlation between past reliance on slave labor and both economic underdevelopment and contemporary inequality. He disagreed with Engerman and Sokoloff’s claim that it was only large-scale plantation slavery that generated these effects; rather, he found, any kind of slavery seemed to have begotten long-term economic woes.

 

[atrib]

Because the "misfortunes" of American slaves have had an enormous effect on the lives of their descendants and the opportunities available to them? Because up until just a few decades ago the descendants of these "unfortunate" people could not attend many public universities or use the same restrooms as white people? Because even today America is dominated by white culture and white privilege? Because one cannot wish away centuries of our history where black people were bought and sold as personal property, even though we may have recently elected a colored president?

How are you measuring these effects?

From my real life experience of living in the southeast United States for over 30 years. I work for a large, multinational engineering consultancy company, and there are virtually no black engineers and zero black officers (Associates or Vice Presidents) working in our offices in the southeastern US. I had very few black classmates in engineering school in the southeast (BS at Auburn, MS at Georgia Tech), but quite a few black students at UC Berkeley where I worked on my PhD.

Racism is alive and well in the southeast. It can be subtle, or in your face, but it is always there and it permeates the culture. It is not a culture that encourages black people to aim higher and I don't believe the playing field is level at all in terms of opportunities. I grew up in Connecticut before moving to Auburn for engineering school (I had a full scholarship to swim there), and the vast cultural differences from the northeast to the southeast are as vivid to me today as they were 30 years ago.

 

[JonA]

How are you measuring these effects?

From my real life experience of living in the southeast United States for over 30 years. I work for a large, multinational engineering consultancy company, and there are virtually no black engineers and zero black officers (Associates or Vice Presidents) working in our offices in the southeastern US. I had very few black classmates in engineering school in the southeast (BS at Auburn, MS at Georgia Tech), but quite a few black students at UC Berkeley where I worked on my PhD.

Racism is alive and well in the southeast. It can be subtle, or in your face, but it is always there and it permeates the culture. It is not a culture that encourages black people to aim higher and I don't believe the playing field is level at all in terms of opportunities. I grew up in Connecticut before moving to Auburn for engineering school (I had a full scholarship to swim there), and the vast cultural differences from the northeast to the southeast are as vivid to me today as they were 30 years ago.

How does that measure anything?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Historians who use facts of history.

The south sure has a much richer economic position today thanks to slavery, in contracts to the poorer, slave free north. The decedents living in the south today are grateful for the economic boon passed down to them.

The absence of slavery and the civil war had a large effect on the south, but you must have already known that.

- - - Updated - - -

From my real life experience of living in the southeast United States for over 30 years. I work for a large, multinational engineering consultancy company, and there are virtually no black engineers and zero black officers (Associates or Vice Presidents) working in our offices in the southeastern US. I had very few black classmates in engineering school in the southeast (BS at Auburn, MS at Georgia Tech), but quite a few black students at UC Berkeley where I worked on my PhD.

Racism is alive and well in the southeast. It can be subtle, or in your face, but it is always there and it permeates the culture. It is not a culture that encourages black people to aim higher and I don't believe the playing field is level at all in terms of opportunities. I grew up in Connecticut before moving to Auburn for engineering school (I had a full scholarship to swim there), and the vast cultural differences from the northeast to the southeast are as vivid to me today as they were 30 years ago.

How does that measure anything?

Are you trolling us?

 

[Juma]

I wouldn't criticize Georgetown for doing this ... as the benefits flow to a class of people based on their ancestors' history with the school, not race.

We do not punish children for the misdeeds of their parents; why would we compensate them for their misfortunes?

Really? That is symmetry for you? Ever thought of the difference of circumstances that is your own fault and circumstances that has been brought upon you by misdeeds of others?

 

[JonA]

Ever thought of the difference of circumstances that is your own fault and circumstances that has been brought upon you by misdeeds of others?

Sure.

Have you ever thought about how we measure these things and how we then compensate those who have been mistreated?

How about how we would measure the compensation for the great, great, great, great, great descendants of those who were mistreated?

 

[Juma]

Ever thought of the difference of circumstances that is your own fault and circumstances that has been brought upon you by misdeeds of others?

Sure.

Have you ever thought about how we measure these things and how we then compensate those who have been mistreated?

How about how we would measure the compensation for the great, great, great, great, great descendants of those who were mistreated?

That is not the point. The point is we should help those that today suffer from mistreatments.

 

[JonA]

Sure.

Have you ever thought about how we measure these things and how we then compensate those who have been mistreated?

How about how we would measure the compensation for the great, great, great, great, great descendants of those who were mistreated?

That is not the point. The point is we should help those that today suffer from mistreatments.

In other words you have thought about neither of these things.

 

[Juma]

That is not the point. The point is we should help those that today suffer from mistreatments.

In other words you have thought about neither of these things.

You have any actual argument or just being rude for the fun of it?

 

[atrib]

From my real life experience of living in the southeast United States for over 30 years. I work for a large, multinational engineering consultancy company, and there are virtually no black engineers and zero black officers (Associates or Vice Presidents) working in our offices in the southeastern US. I had very few black classmates in engineering school in the southeast (BS at Auburn, MS at Georgia Tech), but quite a few black students at UC Berkeley where I worked on my PhD.

Racism is alive and well in the southeast. It can be subtle, or in your face, but it is always there and it permeates the culture. It is not a culture that encourages black people to aim higher and I don't believe the playing field is level at all in terms of opportunities. I grew up in Connecticut before moving to Auburn for engineering school (I had a full scholarship to swim there), and the vast cultural differences from the northeast to the southeast are as vivid to me today as they were 30 years ago.

How does that measure anything?

I think we can start by acknowledging that a disparity exists between the modern day descendants of slaves and the descendants of slave owners. I don't know how one would go about precisely measuring the impact of slavery on black people living in the southeast, and I'm not sure it can even be done on a case by case basis. But even if such a measurement cannot be made, does it mean we should ignore the reality and pretend like everything is fine?

Getting back to the OP, I think it is commendable that Georgetown University, which directly benefited from the slave trade and may even owe its existence to it, has decided to do something about it's less than commendable acts in the past, and is offering an admissions edge to descendants of slaves so they may get some benefit from it today. I don't understand why you find it objectionable.

 

[atrib]

From my real life experience of living in the southeast United States for over 30 years. I work for a large, multinational engineering consultancy company, and there are virtually no black engineers and zero black officers (Associates or Vice Presidents) working in our offices in the southeastern US. I had very few black classmates in engineering school in the southeast (BS at Auburn, MS at Georgia Tech), but quite a few black students at UC Berkeley where I worked on my PhD.

Racism is alive and well in the southeast. It can be subtle, or in your face, but it is always there and it permeates the culture. It is not a culture that encourages black people to aim higher and I don't believe the playing field is level at all in terms of opportunities. I grew up in Connecticut before moving to Auburn for engineering school (I had a full scholarship to swim there), and the vast cultural differences from the northeast to the southeast are as vivid to me today as they were 30 years ago.

How does that measure anything?

What value would you place on your freedom? What would you be willing to pay to not get placed in chains as a boy and shipped off to a plantation to work hard labor without compensation for the rest of your life? To not be beaten savagely at the will of your owner? To not have your children enslaved and sentenced to the same life as yours, if you were permitted to have children? What would you be willing to pay for your freedom and the freedom of your descendants? If you want a measure of the harm done by slavery, this may be a place to start.