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Thread: 'The Case for Reparations'

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    midcan5's Avatar Senior Member
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    'The Case for Reparations'

    Please do not comment unless you read the article.


    "Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole." Ta-Nehisi Coates


    http://www.theatlantic.com/features/...ations/361631/


    "And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today." Deuteronomy 15: 12–15




    "White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded--about themselves and the world they live in. White people have managed to get through their entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac." James Baldwin
    Wanna make America great, buy American owned, made in the USA, we do. AF Veteran, INFJ-A, I am not PC.

    "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it." Voltaire

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    Alyosha's Avatar Senior Member
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    I read the Atlantic. I think it's odd that you ask to read before commenting since I doubt you're reading all the Blaze articles people post before commenting, but whatever...


    Here is my comment, and I have given this thought. The American black culture was a product of slavery. In many ways, this can be a positive experience

    Ό,τι δεν με σκοτώνει με κάνει ποιο δυνατό

    (That which does not destroy me makes me strong". When you are fueled by yearning and then set free you bring with you determination and motivation which can only come through adversity. Most African cultures have a highly ingrained sense of history and family. Blacks in the US kept that until we destroyed it with, sorry, many liberals polices of patronage that were well-intended but still not in the long-term "positive". There were many black businesses on the rise, blacks had tighter knit families, their segregated communities were more successful than now in terms of proportionate economics, and I believe this was because they had fight in them.

    Maya Angelou's poem is so moving to me, Still I Rise

    You may write me down in history
    With your bitter, twisted lies,
    You may trod me in the very dirt
    But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
    Does my sassiness upset you?
    Why are you beset with gloom?
    ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
    Pumping in my living room.
    Just like moons and like suns,
    With the certainty of tides,
    Just like hopes springing high,
    Still I’ll rise.
    Did you want to see me broken?
    Bowed head and lowered eyes?
    Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
    Weakened by my soulful cries.
    Does my haughtiness offend you?
    Don’t you take it awful hard
    ‘Cause I laugh like I got gold mines
    Diggin’ in my own back yard.
    You may shoot me with your words,
    You may cut me with your eyes,
    You may kill me with your hatefulness,
    But still, like air, I’ll rise.
    Does my sexiness upset you?
    Does it come as a surprise
    That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
    At the meeting of my thighs?
    Out of the huts of history’s shame
    I rise
    Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
    I rise
    I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
    Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
    Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
    I rise
    Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
    I rise
    Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave,
    I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
    I rise
    I rise
    I rise.


    I am constantly motivated by this poem. It is that powerful "NO!" That "you will not tell me my limits" scream!

    And this is lost with the well-intentioned patronage of whites like yourself who want to give a generation of blacks who have long moved past this culture of feistyness and strength into the white world of fast money and get yours before they get theirs.

    When we moved here to the US I lived in a mostly black city and in a mostly black ghetto neighborhood. The older black men and women used to shake their heads and say "These kids today are stupid. They don't know where they come from."

    I think reparations should have come after the Civil War or not at all. I don't think what blacks today need is stuff, but a return to family and a sense of their own, empowered history. That means that instead of looking up to Jay-Z as a former drug dealer turned rap mogul they should look up to Oprah Winfrey, former Mississippi planter's granddaughter turned billionaire media mogul with a good heart.
    Last edited by Alyosha; 05-23-2014 at 07:33 AM.
    And if we should die tonight
    Then we should all die together
    Raise a glass of wine for the last time
    Calling out father, prepare as we will
    Watch the flames burn auburn on the mountain side
    Desolation comes upon the sky..

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    To me it is odd that the same people who reject inheritance of wealth in a family demand inheritance of reparations among stangers to each other and those who were slaves and masters.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    I read the article.

    Bull $#@!ing $#@!. I refuse to pay someone for a wrong they did not suffer nor did I commit.

    My ancestors lives probably sucked a lot along the way, where are my reparations?

    No, the concept is bull$#@!. Nobody in this generation owes anyone else anything. Sorry this $#@! happened to your ancestors, wish it didn't. Life's a $#@!, there is no justice sometimes.

    Penalizing the innocent to benefit the unharmed isn't the right way around it.
    my junk is ugly

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    Thirty five years of racist housing policy? LMFAO! Thirty five years of blacks getting preferential treatment via quotas and affirmative action is what you meant to say. How many reparations do you want above the welfare, the section 8 housing, the food stamps and the recognition from Obama that you'll all get equal treatment while he's the president before it sinks in that you blacks will have to fend for yourself some day just like everyone else? You should take a lesson from some of the black Conservatives out there like a Ben Carson on how to stop your whining and how to put your outstretched alms hand back into your own pocket.

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    No movement exist to make it happen. Some people love to stir the pot..and others can't wait to help.

    These types of articles or forum topics are standard fare...like the pregnant local TV station's on-air talent's pregnancy and baby reports...They come around like clockwork.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]


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    Harry Browne said it nicely:
    Harry’s letter to his daughter:

    It’s Christmas and I have the usual problem of deciding what to give you. I know you might enjoy many things — books, games, clothes.
    But I’m very selfish. I want to give you something that will stay with you for more than a few months or years. I want to give you a gift that might remind you of me every Christmas.
    If I could give you just one thing, I’d want it to be a simple truth that took me many years to learn. If you learn it now, it may enrich your life in hundreds of ways. And it may prevent you from facing many problems that have hurt people who have never learned it.
    The truth is simply this: No one owes you anything.
    Significance

    How could such a simple statement be important? It may not seem so, but understanding it can bless your entire life.
    No one owes you anything.
    It means that no one else is living for you, my child. Because no one is you. Each person is living for himself; his own happiness is all he can ever personally feel.
    When you realize that no one owes you happiness or anything else, you’ll be freed from expecting what isn’t likely to be.
    It means no one has to love you. If someone loves you, it’s because there’s something special about you that gives him happiness. Find out what that something special is and try to make it stronger in you, so that you’ll be loved even more.
    When people do things for you, it’s because they want to — because you, in some way, give them something meaningful that makes them want to please you, not because anyone owes you anything.
    No one has to like you. If your friends want to be with you, it’s not out of duty. Find out what makes others happy so they’ll want to be near you.
    No one has to respect you. Some people may even be unkind to you. But once you realize that people don’t have to be good to you, and may not be good to you, you’ll learn to avoid those who would harm you. For you don’t owe them anything either.
    Living your Life

    No one owes you anything.
    You owe it to yourself to be the best person possible. Because if you are, others will want to be with you, want to provide you with the things you want in exchange for what you’re giving to them.
    Some people will choose not to be with you for reasons that have nothing to do with you. When that happens, look elsewhere for the relationships you want. Don’t make someone else’s problem your problem.
    Once you learn that you must earn the love and respect of others, you’ll never expect the impossible and you won’t be disappointed. Others don’t have to share their property with you, nor their feelings or thoughts.
    If they do, it’s because you’ve earned these things. And you have every reason to be proud of the love you receive, your friends’ respect, the property you’ve earned. But don’t ever take them for granted. If you do, you could lose them. They’re not yours by right; you must always earn them.
    My Experience

    A great burden was lifted from my shoulders the day I realized that no one owes me anything. For so long as I’d thought there were things I was entitled to, I’d been wearing myself out —physically and emotionally — trying to collect them.
    No one owes me moral conduct, respect, friendship, love, courtesy, or intelligence. And once I recognized that, all my relationships became far more satisfying. I’ve focused on being with people who want to do the things I want them to do.
    That understanding has served me well with friends, business associates, lovers, sales prospects, and strangers. It constantly reminds me that I can get what I want only if I can enter the other person’s world. I must try to understand how he thinks, what he believes to be important, what he wants. Only then can I appeal to someone in ways that will bring me what I want.
    And only then can I tell whether I really want to be involved with someone. And I can save the important relationships for those with whom I have the most in common.
    It’s not easy to sum up in a few words what has taken me years to learn. But maybe if you re-read this gift each Christmas, the meaning will become a little clearer every year.
    I hope so, for I want more than anything else for you to understand this simple truth that can set you free:
    No one owes you anything.

    "An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time.
    One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition
    across a period of many years if he is
    to have a chance of succeeding"

    ~RZ67~

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    An argument for reparations could have been made 50 years ago. That time has come and gone.

    In any case, why do I have to pay for something I never engaged in? Not that it matters anyway, because it still would have nothing to do with me, but my family came to America in the early-mid 1900s and were poor as $#@!. Not only did they never engage in slavery, they may have had ancestors that were glorified slaves over in Europe.

    The best reparations for black people would be the end of the drug war and other government $#@!ery, be it in the form of discrimination or "help." We all need to be treated as equals by the law and government.

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    You all got to recognize that to a progressive like midcan rights represent abstract obligations of society. They don't have anything to do with anyone in particular. They're used to look good in crying for social justice, and make look bad those who do not.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    I find it ironic that the same gaggle of fools that want to end inheritance also want to restore some fictional inheritance that was stolen from slaves ages ago via "reparations".
    "An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time.
    One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition
    across a period of many years if he is
    to have a chance of succeeding"

    ~RZ67~

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