"Practicalities" of Reparations

[Justin Schwartz]

Leo, you are hopeless. If the basis of eligibility is descent from slaves, 
this can be established in lots of ways. No reasonable program would insist 
on being able to produce paperwork back to the time one's ancestors came off 
the boat. Use of race, including self-identification, could be a proxy for 
slave descent, something what would createa  rebuttable presumption of 
entitlement; it would not be distribution because of race, but because of 
slave ancestry, of which race is a pretty good indicator. If a lot of white 
people claimed to be black, I think that would be rather nice, don't you? 
Why would it be a problem?  Who said I dismissed Robinson's trust fund or 
whatever it is? I never said anything about it. I don't know anything about 
it. And righting some wrongs doesn't mean a program that does it has to 
right all wrongs. Finally, although I expressed myself carelessly with 
respect to who would pay, a moment's thought would show that I meant that 
white workers, indeed all Americans, would have to pay, if a settlement 
camre from tax funds. You are dodging the political question, too, Leo: are 
reparations a good idea? If so, we can figure out how to implement them. As 
I say, bog class settlements provide an excellent model that often face 
harder administraive problems. But the first question is: are they a good 
idea?


>
> >1) Defining race.
>
>Elibigity has to be on the basis of descent from a slave, not on the basis
>of race.
>
>
>Virtually impossible to document in all but a very small portion of cases.
>
> > > 2) Defining eligibility after defining race.
> >
> > Not a big deal. Anyone who can show to some reasonable standard that she 
>or
> > he had at least some % of slave ancestry, something like that. You 
>wouldn't
> > have to require that people produce papers; race might be a presumptive
> > indicator.
>
>Nice circular reasoning. You are back at the very question which you dodged
>on number 1. How do you establish race? Citing affirmative action is also 
>not
>an answer, since this is based, in matters such as college admissions, on
>self-identification. Are we going to self-identify for reparations? We 
>might
>as well have everybody pay themselves now, and get it over with.
>
> > >3)
> > >Defining the mechanism of reparation (America's plan reinforces
> > >capitalist logic; you want to undermine it.
> >
> > Send out a check to the eligible.
> >
>
>You might try to take a stab at explaining why you dismiss Randall 
>Robinson's
>proposal for a national trust fund.
>
> > > 4) Deciding whom
> > >to
> > >exclude - if you include the descendants of slaves, why not Indians?
> > >Why not the Latin Americans we've bled for eons?
> >
> > Because reparations for slavery is not intended to right all wrongs.
> >
>
>Well, the genocide of Native Americans is right up there with slavery in
>terms of the most gross injustices carried out by this nation, and no other
>race or ethnic group comes even close to the deprivation and poverty facing
>Native Americans today.
>
> > >  5) Deciding how to
> > >fund them - should working class whites be taxed, or just bourgeois
> > >whites?
> >
> > In the real world, obviously yes.
> >
>
>Question: A or B? Answer: Yes. That makes a lot of sense.
>
> > This is just a dodge for avoiding _political_ discussion, Doug.
>
>Doug's questions? Or your answers?
>
>Leo Casey
>United Federation of Teachers
>260 Park Avenue South
>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
>
>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
>It never has, and it never will.
>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
>-- Frederick Douglass --
>
>

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