I assure you that many here won't, or will pretend not to.
-
Features
The Unequal Opportunity Race
- Thread starter ruby sparks
- Start date
I assure you that many here won't, or will pretend not to.
And that speaks well of you.
But, on a wider scale, the racial wealth gap in the USA is arguably obscene. The average wealth of a black person is only 6% of the average wealth of a white person. That's incredible. And there is very little doubt that quite a bit of the gap is down, directly and indirectly, to stuff like racism and structural inequalities over time. So most white kids, even if not all and not you, do benefit from it compared to other groups, to a variety of extents.
Racism makes an entire society poorer.
The United States history of slavery made everyone poorer. That is, the GDP of the US right now would be higher if the US never had slavery.
White people, even white people whose ancestors owned slaves, are now poorer than they otherwise would have been if slavery never existed, because the entire society is poorer.
White people don't "benefit" from anti-black racism. The idea is prima facie absurd.
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX_Vzl-r8NY[/YOUTUBE]
I have a feeling this little animation might spark an interesting debate.
You realize most AA support is actually saying blacks are inferior?
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX_Vzl-r8NY[/YOUTUBE]
I have a feeling this little animation might spark an interesting debate.
You realize most AA support is actually saying blacks are inferior?
ruby sparks
Contributor
I think that is literally one of the stupidest posts I have seen on the internet, ever. It takes denial of the completely, demonstrably and factually obvious to a whole new level of ridiculous. Congratulations.
And just to be clear, I am already aware of the case that has been made that slavery was not the most economically efficient system for the US, especially not when the country was modernising leading up to the time of abolition. Even if that is correct, I would still say what I just said.
Last edited:
ruby sparks
Contributor
I'm not even going to ask how or in what ways you could possibly come to describe the content in that obviously erroneous way.
And yet you reply anyway, and immediately after you call a different post stupid even if correct. Bravo. That's a double hitter.
ruby sparks
Contributor
You've badly misconstrued what I said. A racist or slavery society not being the most efficient situation economically, and that one group nevertheless benefitted disproportionately from it at the expense of another are obviously two different things. Inequalities are not absolute, they are relative. This should arguably not even need to be spelt out. By far the vast majority of white people in the USA benefitted somewhat (and many if not most still do) in relative terms, even if they did not become very wealthy and even if the country as a whole did not perform as well as it hypothetically would have without the racism and slavery.
Last edited:
You've badly misconstrued what he said. He didn't say anything about disproportionately. He said as compared to themselves had their ancestors not enslaved anyone. He wasn't comparing those whose ancestors enslaved people to those whose ancestors were enslaved.
You may want to refrain from calling something the stupidest thing ever unless and until you are sure you aren't being too stupid to understand it.
ruby sparks
Contributor
To reiterate.....
This. Is. Patent. Bollocks.
White people in the USA have, in the main, financially benefitted, in both real and relative terms, from structural inequalities, anti-black racism and slavery, and continue to do so (partly because of historical and legacy factors and partly because of ongoing or recent racism, including in its institutionalised forms, and partly for other reasons, including non-racist or discriminatory ones) albeit to a lesser extent. Any intelligent and objective person who has looked into the issue in relation to the US can appreciate and acknowledge that this is simply true, even if they disagree with AA, or some forms of it.
Last edited:
Harry Bosch
Contributor
To reiterate.....
This. Is. Patent. Bollocks.
White people in the USA have, in the main, financially benefitted from structural inequalities, anti-black racism and slavery, and continue to do so (partly because of historical and legacy factors and partly because of ongoing or recent racism, including in its institutionalised forms) albeit to a lesser extent. Any intelligent and objective person can appreciate and acknowledge that this is simply true, even if they disagree with AA.
Ruby: I really appreciate your posts. And I agree with your general theme in this thread. However, I agree with Metaphor that slavery is a drag on an economy. I think that the US south would be far better off today if they had abandoned slavery well before the Civil War. Besides being so inhumane, think of all the incredible waste of intellect and innovation that occurred by immorally imprisoning such a large group of people. The richest areas of the world are generally those that are the most free. Let's be clear, slavery was not abolished by the US civil war! It continues today. In fact, there are more slaves today than at any time in history. However, most of the areas which hold slaves are the poorest areas of the planet. Free labor countries are always richer. In a slave economy, there are fewer laborers with cash to spend. Their wages are brought down.
Having said that, I obviously agree that blacks enslaved in the US have never been fully compensated for the crimes committed against them. Neither have Indians or early Chinese immigrants from the 1920's been fully compensated.
The same applies to sexism and any other ism in which the best and most talented are prevented or discouraged from filling the roles they are best for.
Imagine how much genius was lost in science advancement alone because black people were not allowed to participate. All of society is worse off for it, including the white people.
Imagine how much genius was lost in science advancement alone because black people were not allowed to participate. All of society is worse off for it, including the white people.
ruby sparks
Contributor
And I do not disagree with that particular point either.
Though to be perfectly honest, economics is not one of my strong points, so in fact I do not how if or how much I agree or disagree. It has equally been said that the modern wealth of certain nations (including my own, as in Britain) was built off the back of slavery and exploitation, including of other peoples. And that has always rung true. But as I said, economics is not my strong point, and is complicated. It may also be the case that while countries which are now free do better than countries which are not free now, this may not have been the case in historical terms. Context matters. Going back far enough, I think the Greek, Roman, Egyptian economies, and probably a lot of others that had slavery, did rather well.
In any case, it is as I said a slightly separate thing, and this is what I am emphasising, to say on the one hand that a society would have done better without slavery and on the other hand to say that slavery did not disproportionately nonetheless benefit one group and disadvantage another, inside a society, because the problems with the (huge) racial inequalities in the USA were and are mainly relative.
Last edited:
Of course that is true. You are right. Racism is racist. But you are also pushing a completely straw man.
You told somebody that they wrote the stupidest post ever, which didn't say what you thought it did. You were corrected on what it said. You still won't acknowledge your stupid mistake. That makes yours one of the stupidest posts ever.
RVonse
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2005
- Messages
- 3,855
- Location
- USA
- Basic Beliefs
- that people in the US are living in the matrx
So do we dig up their bones and gift them with an endowment? Should the German's do the same for the jews who.were persecuted during WW2? Even though as a group, the jewish people possess far more wealth and property than present day German's? (Rothchilds, etc)
Why would reparations for one non deserving race not apply across the board to all others?
Why? What have I said that is wrong?
To reiterate.....
This. Is. Patent. Bollocks.
White people in the USA have, in the main, financially benefitted, in both real and relative terms, from structural inequalities, anti-black racism and slavery, and continue to do so (partly because of historical and legacy factors and partly because of ongoing or recent racism, including in its institutionalised forms, and partly for other reasons, including non-racist or discriminatory ones) albeit to a lesser extent. Any intelligent and objective person who has looked into the issue in relation to the US can appreciate and acknowledge that this is simply true, even if they disagree with AA, or some forms of it.
No. Racism hurts an entire society, because racist thinking and actions either destroy wealth or fail to create as much wealth as could have been made.
Take the idea (whether it's true or not) that being black means cops are more likely to shoot you as a suspect or bystander. If it's true, in what way do white people benefit? The biggest losers are the people who got shot without reason, the next biggest losers are the people who are in the at-risk demographic, and the next biggest loser is wider society itself. Even if cops shooting black people had (somehow) no effect on white people, it's unvarnished madness to believe white people benefit.
I've been told, to my face with nil irony, that I, as a gay man, benefit from heterosexual men sexually harassing women. This is absurd to the point of inconceivability. The closest-to-coherent justification I got to justify this assertion was that women who have been made afraid of men via continual objectification are less likely to challenge my ideas even when they disagree with me. Even if that were true, that assumes having people not challenge my ideas is somehow a benefit to me, when in fact it impedes my mental development to not have feedback.
The same people have also suggested that women who drop out of the labour market because they've been sexually harassed opens up an opportunity for a man to take her job, and therefore men benefit. I can only imagine the people that suggest this think the labour market is a fixed pie, which it isn't, and that somehow the economy doesn't get worse if people are no longer producing the goods and services they were producing before they dropped out of the labour market.
Every single time someone gets a job or perk that was not influenced by being the best person for the role but was influenced partially by irrelevant factors to performance (race, being the boss's daughter, etc), the world gets poorer. There are individual winners and losers from such transactions but there is a net negative effect.
I think it would be extremely challenging to prove descendants of slaves are worse off because of slavery. The first challenge being they probably wouldn’t exist. The second being that if you assumed they would exist anyway, they’d be probably be a lot worse of if they’d been born in Africa based on the relative wealth of Africans vs African Americans.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
I very carefully didn't state that I favor reparations. I haven't made up my mind on the issue yet. It's very complicated. I definitely think that the issue will be the number one Russian Troll 2020 campaign issue. And it will hurt the democrats.
ruby sparks
Contributor
The basic case, in principle, for reparations to black people in the USA, is very strong, imo, not least because the numerous and varied discriminations (that have affected the enormous racial wealth gap) started during the slavery era, continued into the Jim Crow era, and still continue into this century.
In practice, there are a lot of complications. Obama realised this, which is why, despite agreeing there is a case in principle, he felt it would, for a variety of reasons, be impractical to implement:
"I mean, I guess, here’s the way—probably the best way of saying it is that you can make a theoretical, abstract argument in favor of something like reparations. And maybe I’m just not being sufficiently optimistic or imaginative enough—"
Barack Obama explains why he doesn't think reparations to black people are practical
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/164713
It's my understanding that some other Democrats are at least slightly more in favour of the idea, including, I think, Bernie Sanders, who I tend to admire quite a lot:
Bernie Sanders Asks the Right Question on Reparations: What Does It Mean?
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/26/reparations-bernie-sanders/
Bernie Sanders when asked about reparations says there are 'better ways' to help people than 'writing out a check'
https://www.businessinsider.com/ber...tter-ways-help-writing-check-2019-3?r=US&IR=T
And I hear that some other Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, are more in favour:
"While Warren stopped short of calling for direct payments, she threw her support behind a bill in the US House to study the issue and acknowledged the persistence of racial injustice in America.
“This is a stain on America and we’re not going to fix that, we’re not going to change that, until we address it head on, directly,” she said. “And make no mistake, it’s not just the original founding. It’s just what happened generation after generation.” "
Elizabeth Warren gives a full-throated endorsement of reparations at CNN town hall
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/18/18272000/elizabeth-warren-reparations-cnn-town-hall
Personally, I think it's good that it is at least being raised openly, discussed, acknowledged and studied. As to what potential measures I might agree are reasonable and fair, that would depend, a lot, on the exact nature of any proposals. I am not against indirect social measures, such as those based on socioeconomics, since they might benefit everyone in need and deserving, though I think a case could be made for making the basis (of that sort of measure) wealth and not income, which would then likely benefit blacks proportionately more, which, to me, would seem more fair, in the circumstances (the disadvantages & discriminations having disproportionately affected them, and their wealth, in the first place).
Last edited: