>>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>
>>>Mat & Justin have already made an argument that practicalities are
>>>not the problem. What's your objection to them?
>>
>>1) Defining race.
>
>Elibigity has to be on the basis of descent from a slave, not on the
>basis of race.
>
>> 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.
Doesn't your response to (2) contradict (1)?
>>3)
>>Defining the mechanism of reparation (America's plan reinforces
>>capitalist logic; you want to undermine it.
>
>Send out a check to the eligible.
I think Robinson criticizes this as an individualist solution to a collective, political problem.
> > 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.
If the descendants of slaves deserve reparations, I don't see how you can say American Indians are any less deserving.
>> 5) Deciding how to
>>fund them - should working class whites be taxed, or just bourgeois
>>whites?
>>
>
>In the real world, obviously yes.
>
>This is just a dodge for avoiding _political_ discussion, Doug.
No, like I said before, these practical matters are deeply political: defining race, deciding on a mechanism of compensation, deciding on whether that mechanism is capitalist (a check) or anticapitalist (?), deciding on who does and doesn't deserve compenation. By Margaret Atwood's definition of politics - who does what to whom and gets away with it - these are all very political questions.
Doug