> > Why should a campaign for reparations be based upon the
>> "notion that *white America*, however defined, owes
>> reparations to black Americans for slavery and its
>> legacy"?
>
>It ISN'T.
>
>> Why not organize a campaign on the ground that *the
>> ruling class* owes reparations to black Americans for
>> slavery and its legacy?
>
>It already IS.
Isn't the actually existing reparation campaign more complex (I say this without agreeing with Reed on the straw man he set up), in terms of participants' ideologies, arguments, etc.? Maybe you are saying, though, that a campaign for reparations for slavery _by its nature_ (whatever rhetoric may be used by diverse activists in it) cannot but raise the question of _who labored to create wealth_ (unlike, say, a reparation campaign for Japanese-Americans). If so, I agree.
> > According to my understanding of slavery, racism, &
>> their injuries, non-black American workers are also
>> entitled to reparations for slavery and its legacy, but
>> most of them have yet to become hip to their own
>> injuries.... :-)
>
>Part of that's the same old story: the ignorance, backwardness,
>treachery, and reactionary nature of the white working-class.
>
>Your JOB, if you really want to be USEFUL, is to go about
>dealing with THAT, instead of trying to lecture Blacks about
>what we should or should not be doing.
I'm trying, here & elsewhere, for what it's worth.
Yoshie