<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=3><< Use of race, including self-identification, could be a proxy for slave
<BR>descent, something what would create a rebuttable presumption of
<BR>entitlement; it would not be distribution because of race, but because of
<BR>slave ancestry, of which race is a pretty good indicator. If a lot of white
<BR>people claimed to be black, I think that would be rather nice, don't you?
<BR>Why would it be a problem? >>
<BR>
<BR>1. If there is any purpose to reparations, is it not to provide, in some
<BR>measure, justice? If anyone can claim to be a descendant of slaves, because
<BR>anyone can self-identify as such, where is the justice?
<BR>
<BR>2. No, I don't think it would be nice if a lot of white Americans
<BR>self-identified as African-American and descendants of slaves for purpose of
<BR>receiving reparations. For the minute after they signed the form, they would
<BR>return to a world in which the everyday presumption was that they were not,
<BR>and they would have the privileges of being white. And prior to signing the
<BR>form, they have lived lives without any of the injustices of being an
<BR>African-American in a racist society.
<BR>
<BR>3. With hundreds of millions potential recipients, exactly how are rebuttable
<BR>presumptions based on self-identification going to be rebutted?
<BR>
<BR>4. On the presumption based on race [which we still can't define]: A very
<BR>substantial proportion of people of African descent in the US are people who
<BR>have migrated from the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa this century. They
<BR>are not descendants of enslaved African-Americans.
<BR>
<BR><< Who said I dismissed Robinson's trust fund or whatever it is? I never said
<BR>anything about it. I don't know anything about it. And righting some wrongs
<BR>doesn't mean a program that does it has to right all wrongs. >>
<BR>
<BR>1. Sending an individual cheque to the entitled, as you proposed, is clearly
<BR>contrary to establishing a trust fund which would provide certain social
<BR>goods [ie, free tuition], as Robinson suggests. Doug's question was how
<BR>should reparations be administered, and clearly focused on this contrast. If
<BR>you don't know anything about it, you might (a) learn something, or (b)
<BR>refrain from offering an opinion.
<BR>
<BR>2. It is one thing to right a wrong, one at a time; it is another thing to
<BR>right a wrong by a means that commits more wrongs. Why, pray tell, should
<BR>Native Americans, who have suffered from American racism perhaps even more
<BR>grievously than African-Americans, be contributing to reparations for what
<BR>white Americans did? Ditto, Asian-Americans and Latinos.
<BR>
<BR><< Finally, although I expressed myself carelessly with respect to who would
<BR>pay, a moment's thought would show that I meant that white workers, indeed
<BR>all Americans, would have to pay, if a settlement
<BR>camre from tax funds. You are dodging the political question, too, Leo: are
<BR>reparations a good idea? If so, we can figure out how to implement them. As I
<BR>say, bog class settlements provide an excellent model that often face harder
<BR>administraive problems. But the first question is: are they a good idea? >>
<BR>
<BR>Of all the things that could be said about what I have posted on LBO-Talk on
<BR>the questions of reparations, surely the most ludicrous is that I am dodging
<BR>the question. What exactly does one have to say to take a stand in your view?
<BR>
<BR>Leo Casey
<BR>United Federation of Teachers
<BR>260 Park Avenue South
<BR>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
<BR>
<BR>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
<BR>It never has, and it never will.
<BR>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
<BR>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
<BR>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
<BR>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
<BR><P ALIGN=CENTER>-- Frederick Douglass --
<BR>
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