[lbo-talk] South & North/Reparations

[JBrown72073 at cs.com]

jks writes:
>Of course the fundamental objections are that it is
>totally utopian in the bad sense and would be utterly
>counterproductive. It will never happen this side of
>socialism (when it will not be necessary, as opposed
>to whatever policies would be useful to make sure that
>historically oppressed groups benefit equally with
>everyone from the new system), it pointlessly stirs up
>racial resentment by guilt-tripping the white working
>class and middle classes, and if it ever did happen,
>those groups and maybe others would say, OK, we're all
>square now and don't need to do anything more. 

Affirmative Action didn't require socialism, at least it didn't require it 
here.
While the government might be the dispenser of reparations, as with the 
tobacco settlements, that doesn't mean that the source of funds would be universal 
taxation.

The resentment of white working class people could rapidly be turned into 
something else, enlightenment about common enemies, if the targets were 
well-chosen.

Jenny Brown