The UN demands the US pay Reparations

Traditio

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I'm familiar with the difficulties. That's why I think it needs to be studied. That's also why probably the most reasonable corrective will be some sort of federal program looking at systemic disadvantages.

You understand why this is, logically speaking, ridiculous?

"I can't prove that anyone in particular actually is the victim of injustice. Therefore, we should presuppose that everyone of a certain class is a victim, assume that everyone of a certain class is guilty, and act accordingly."

THAT'S an injustice.

It would never fly in a civil suit. It shouldn't fly here.

Period.

Addendum:

What's hilarious about this to me (i.e., that you wish to assume white guilt and black victimhood from the get go and effectively reward blacks and punish whites without due process, without standards of evidence that would fly in court) is that you would probably gripe and moan when a black person gets shot by a policeman for his own stupidity. You probably say again and again, "he didn't deserve to die (even though he was guilty as sin and was threatening the officer with lethal force); he deserved due process!"

Meanwhile you fault me, probably, for thinking that due process in most criminal cases is unnecessary and that we should have on the spot justice.

But it's OK to waive due process and standards of evidence if the white people as a whole are the suspects and the black people are the suspected victims. :rolleyes:
 
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Traditio

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You made yourself out to be a victim while pretending you were simply making a public services announcement to the choir, and then proceed over here to pontificate in this thread as to whether American Blacks should have any standing for reparation. Your run-in with a feminist on campus is nothing compared to what African-Americans and their ancestors went through. Kindly grow up.

Many thanks :)

Please tell me about what currently living black people have gone through. I would love to hear about that. Do be sure to mention affirmative action, welfare, free housing, free school lunches and medicaid.

Furthermore (as listening to Johnny Rebel's "Here Comes Jesse" brings to mind), do please explain to me, when you are talking about how these poor, mistreated living black people are being oppressed, why those rabble rousers Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton still appear to be unharmed and in good health. :p
 
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Traditio

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I think if you have a tenth the maturity you think you're demanding from other people, you wouldn't take personally something that is almost certainly not actually about you. It takes quite an ego to suppose that the names that black people give their children are about you.

It's not about me in particular. It's about white people in general. If black people dislike white people and white culture so much, then they have no right to expect white people to employ them when they insist on slighting us, our culture, our way of life, etc.

Come to think of it, if they are so recalcitrant to adopting our culture, and if they dislike us so much, then why do they insist on maintaining integration?

Maybe because it holds some special resonance for them, for obvious reasons? White people learn all about white-people-history, which tends to be codified into educational standards. Why shouldn't black people want to learn about their own history?

It's sectarian and only plays into their whole "white people are bad and black people are victims" racist worldview, which is, in fact, the "black identity" that you keep talking about. That's why those militant, activist, rabble rousing blacks take up those college majors (as opposed to real fields of study).

Name being used as a proxy for race. Why is the onus on black people to conform to your expectations?

That's the way assimilation works. :rolleyes:

Yeah, we'll just get the government to impose an official accent. That'll be great.

It's standard American English, bro. :rolleyes:
 
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lovemeorhateme

Well-known member
You made yourself out to be a victim while pretending you were simply making a public services announcement to the choir, and then proceed over here to pontificate in this thread as to whether American Blacks should have any standing for reparation. Your run-in with a feminist on campus is nothing compared to what African-Americans and their ancestors went through. Kindly grow up.

Many thanks :)

You seem intent on making this personal. I'm not going to keep repeating myself over and over. If you really don't have the comprehension to understand what I'm saying then what's the point?

Need I remind you that it's feminists who seem to see living as a privileged white woman being akin to being black slaves. I don't feel this way, and I've stated time and again that I don't feel like a victim.

I don't know what's got into you Anna. I used to like and respect you but you're quickly throwing that out of the window. Now will you kindly go away and leave me alone?
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
You seem intent on making this personal. I'm not going to keep repeating myself over and over. If you really don't have the comprehension to understand what I'm saying then what's the point?

Need I remind you that it's feminists who seem to see living as a privileged white woman being akin to being black slaves. I don't feel this way, and I've stated time and again that I don't feel like a victim.

I don't know what's got into you Anna. I used to like and respect you but you're quickly throwing that out of the window. Now will you kindly go away and leave me alone?

You're doing a fine job of making this personal yourself, had you noticed? (Probably not. That was a rhetorical question.) I'm not here to earn your respect, and if you don't want to read what I'm saying, by all means, you have the ability to put me on ignore or scroll right past me without comment.
 

HisServant

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I'm familiar with the difficulties. That's why I think it needs to be studied. That's also why probably the most reasonable corrective will be some sort of federal program looking at systemic disadvantages.

From discussions with the dozen or so African Americans in my office (all are successful.. 100k+ salaries, etc..) most feel that their fellow African Americans are their own worse enemies when it comes to success.

Success sometimes takes a little compliance... doing things you don't want to do for the sake of your career.. this happens no matter what color you are. African Americans are so intent on making others accept them for who they and they will not bend like everyone else and end up either getting fired or pigeon holed because of it.

The corporate world is all about conforming first and then figuring out how to succeed within the bureaucracy.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
From discussions with the dozen or so African Americans in my office (all are successful.. 100k+ salaries, etc..) most feel that their fellow African Americans are their own worse enemies when it comes to success.

Success sometimes takes a little compliance... doing things you don't want to do for the sake of your career.. this happens no matter what color you are. African Americans are so intent on making others accept them for who they and they will not bend like everyone else and end up either getting fired or pigeon holed because of it.

The corporate world is all about conforming first and then figuring out how to succeed within the bureaucracy.

i don't have time right now to fully develop this, but the ghetto culture of resistance to "white" culture is an artifact from slavery, where it was advantageous to resist the master just far enough to avoid punishment

because there was no benefit to extra effort

as an ingrained cultural artifact, it doesn't work very well today :idunno:
 

HisServant

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i don't have time right now to fully develop this, but the ghetto culture of resistance to "white" culture is an artifact from slavery, where it was advantageous to resist the master just far enough to avoid punishment

because there was no benefit to extra effort

as an ingrained cultural artifact, it doesn't work very well today :idunno:

They have had a multiple generations to deal with this artifact... should the majority adapt to accommodate the minority or the other way around?
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
They have had a multiple generations to deal with this artifact...

true, but for too much of that time, in too many settings, they still were working under a system where extra effort didn't bring reward


a lot of the kids i taught in the inner city had the same feeling - they didn't think it was worth trying - that success in school wouldn't lead to anything advantageous
 

kmoney

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I believe I have already shown that.
Where?

EDIT - I assume you mean the part about being indistinguishable. You're talking about two different things that may not be the same. You provided a quote that was about cultural assimilation. I will assume for the moment that if you want to assimilate you need to choose an 'American' sounding name for your children. Now, is assimilation the same as accepting American culture or is assimilation a more extreme version of it? Why does someone have to throw off all other cultural elements in order to accept American culture? I assume you wouldn't ask that an immigrant change their name when coming here. So if they can have an un-American name and still be OK then why does naming their child something from their own culture break it?


That is entirely besides the point.
People WILL be discriminated against because their name does not fit the cultural norms, regardless of whether someone thinks that person will be a "bad" employee.
It is about whether the person will fit in the culture, not about a person's supposed work ethic.
Your distinction between culture and work ethic doesn't matter. Ultimately what an employer cares about is how they will fit in at the company and if they will be successful at the job. You're making an assumption based on someone's name that they won't fit in with the company and won't be a good employee.

There are facts and figures behind my assessment.
_____
Immigrants Who 'Americanized' Their Names Earned 14 Percent More, Study Says

Many immigrants coming to the United States in the early 1900s did “Americanize” their names when they reached New York—and a recent study reported by The Economist shows that their incomes rose because of it. The researchers took a sample of 3,400 male immigrants—from Italy, Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and other countries—who naturalized in 1930 in New York. About of third of them legally discarded their first names and took on common American names like Charles, John, or William, the study says.

Then, the study authors compared the occupations of the immigrants who Americanized their names to those who didn’t. Exact earnings data wasn’t available, but the researchers did have access to naturalization papers filed five years after the immigrants originally declared intent to naturalize that listed their jobs. Their findings? Changing from a foreign name to a popular American name translated to a 14 percent boost in earnings.
_____​

Your opinion is at odds with reality.
My point isn't about whether or not discrimination based on names does happen. My point is about whether it should.


Many people eat native cuisines when they travel and bring those cuisines back with them and then assimilate the cuisines of other cultures into their own culture.
So because you can eat Chinese food someone who eats it can still be indistinguishable? You could name your kid Laquan. :idunno:

And why does it have to be an American traveling and bringing food back instead of an immigrant coming in and bringing their food?
 

kmoney

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"Hey, boss man, I know I am a goth and I dress in a positively ridiculous manner. I further am aware that I have all sorts of bizarre piercings and am covered in tattoos...but you should hire me anyway!"
That is in no way the same as writing someone off from the start based on their name.
 

kmoney

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It's all parasitic upon white culture. They don't name their children "Shaquan" because that's an historically acceptable black name. No. They name their child anything and everything, just so long as it's not a "normal" white name. Seriously. Google "strange black names" or something like that.

I've heard of a black child being named "orange jello (pronounced "orahn-jelo")."

A mexican names his child "Jorge" because that's a mexican name.
An arab names his child "Zayed" because that's an Arabic name.
Black people name their children "Shaquan" to spite us.

Well, as I said: if that's the way they want to play it. To heck with them.
I think one of your mistakes is to assume that the naming convention is to spite all Americans and their culture. I agree that many names we see aren't traditionally African. Some of it is probably to carve out an identity within American culture, particularly in reaction to perceived oppression, rightly or wrongly. I don't think it's a 'middle finger' to all of America. I don't think they're trying to subvert all of what you think 'American' is. I think you put excessive emphasis on things that aren't all that important in defining what 'American' is.

Of course I'm giving them the chance to break out of the stereotype. All he has to do is go down to the court house and change his name. Then, of course, he can pull his pants up, turn his music down, and listen to something other than hip hop. And then, of course, he can start speaking proper English like he learned in school...preferably at a reasonable volume, i.e., in an "indoors voice." Ain't no reason to howl like wild animals from across the room. ;)

Unless and until then? I want nothing to do with those people.
You're so charitable. :eek:
 

kmoney

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I don't know. At the moment, I'd say the most appropriate thing would be to study the possibility of reparations, which is what Rep Conyers's bill would do. It's likely that it would be prohibitive to break down reparations to individual responsibility. And that is ok with me, because part of the purpose of reparations is to compensate not just slavery, but the things that have happened since slavery, such as segregation and systematic discrimination. So, a black person with no personal family history of enslavement might still be qualified because of policies of deliberate exclusion that have been far more recent.

I don't have definite views on this yet but here are a few general thoughts.

While slavery isn't ancient history it does seem far enough in the past to not be a significant cause behind the problems that black people face right now. I think what is much more relevant is the unequal treatment blacks have faced between then and the civil rights movement and to a lesser extent between then and now.

My initial thought is to say that we already have programs and laws in place to address inequalities. Those programs and laws may not be perfect and perhaps need to be updated/reformed, but it wouldn't be adding new programs in place to specifically help black people to pay reparations for slavery and other discrimination.

Reparations implies a close connection between the offender, offense, and offended. What you're talking about seems so vague that I'd hesitate to even use the term.

Depending on how it's done, throwing money at someone is not a cure-all.

I think there is a fine line between acknowledging inequalities and trying to correct them and taking away personal responsibility. I don't want talk of reparations and the effects of slavery to be a crutch for black people to rely on and blame all their troubles on. I think this is also where LMOHM's article about black Americans vs African Americans can be relevant.

Without seeing specific ideas it's hard to comment more.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
That is in no way the same as writing someone off from the start based on their name.

if you're working in HR and you have a couple hundred applications for job, you have to start somewhere to pare down the list

what better way than to eliminate those whose names look like they came right off the police blotter in the inner city?


here's what i think of when i think of "Mary" from the inner city:
20110221-diana-ross-slide-1-600x411.jpg



shuaniqwa?
frabz-Oh-no-you-didnt-Just-go-there-05c00a.jpg
 

kmoney

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if you're working in HR and you have a couple hundred applications for job, you have to start somewhere to pare down the list

what better way than to eliminate those whose names look like they came right off the police blotter in the inner city?


here's what i think of when i think of "Mary" from the inner city:
20110221-diana-ross-slide-1-600x411.jpg



shuaniqwa?
frabz-Oh-no-you-didnt-Just-go-there-05c00a.jpg

Maybe job applications shouldn't come with names.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
Maybe job applications shouldn't come with names.

maybe ghetto folk shouldn't whine when they're discriminated against based on their ghetto behavior (such as giving their children ridiculous names)



in a similiar manner, if i'm a manager at mcdonalds and I'm looking for someone to run the fryolator, I'm probably gonna toss Emerson Walton Billingsley IV's application in favor of John Williams'
 
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