Yes. We DO have informal slavery still also. It's not legal, but it happens. With varying degrees of government endorsement, too - I am thinking of the so-called Apprenticeship Acts in my home state, for instance, many of whose victims are still living - and it complicates things. If we start adding up the total harm this government has caused over time, the ledger is going to contain an unpayable number. I don't think it would benefit anyone to empty the treasury in redress of wrongs done, but they should be remembered as debts when we are designing future policies. Not in a clumsy, race-based way, but in terms of concrete harm countered by concrete solutions.
(The Irish people certainly have their own just grievances with the US government, if it comes to that! Though those wounds are older and forgotten by many. One thing I have realized in my studies of genealogy is how many of my own Northern Irish relatives came here under indenture. Of course, I suppose that bill would land in London, not Washington. There are more recent episodes of harm against ethnically Irish citizens and communities, though.)
Sure. I think those are also good points.
Reparations are complicated and controversial. Applying them in a manner that's fair to all and takes in all possible valid cases is....almost impossible. It could be that we would have to prioritise and start with the worst ones. Like triage. But who decides what's worst (or most deserving), and where do we stop?
For example, although I think I fundamentally disagree with most of what metaphor says, that men had to go to war........well, it's valid, ultimately, as a cause for asking for reparations.
Now I've arguably dwelt on obstacles, just after saying to someone else that there was too much of that in the thread. Lol.
