Reparations-A Hammer in Search of a Nail

[Pressing-On]

Great article!!

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Reparations: A Hammer in Search of a Nail

The hope that electing the first black president would put an end to the era of racial politics has long ago seemed quaint, along with many other exaggerated expectations for Barack Obama. But now we have proof that a whole new era of racial politics is just beginning.

If you want to add anything new to the discussion, you have to go farther. You have to actually demonstrate that this is a real, workable idea.

Yet the punt is instructive, because it tells us what this piece is actually about: it’s about making the case that America is guilty.

Ideologically, far from slavery being somehow essential to America’s founding, many of America’s Founders knew that it contradicted their doctrine of individual rights and that the country would eventually have to reckon with the question of how to eliminate it. Economically, from the very beginning it was widely remarked upon—Alexis de Tocqueville discusses it at length in Democracy in America—that America’s slave states were much less productive than its free states. American agriculture was expanded, not by the plantations of the slaveholders, but by the homesteads of the pioneers; American industry was driven, not by slave labor, but by innovation, not by cotton but by steam engines and steel mills.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/05/29/...rch-of-a-nail/

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Great article!!

Alexis de Tocqueville also said that racial bigotry was stronger where slavery did not exist in American than where it did exist. Those northern States may have been more productive on one hand, but 70% of the tax revenue came from the South and the yanks didn't hesitate to loot the national treasury for their own business and infrastructure interests, something the south opposed.

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Originalist

Alexis de Tocqueville also said that racial bigotry was stronger where slavery did not exist in American than where it did exist. Those northern States may have been more productive on one hand, but 70% of the tax revenue came from the South and the yanks didn't hesitate to loot the national treasury for their own business and infrastructure interests, something the south opposed.

I don't believe that is true across the board. You have Frederick Douglass quoted as saying, when commenting on the work ethic up north...

"I saw industry without bustle, labor without noise, and heavy toil without the whip. There was no loud singing, as in southern ports, where ships are loading or unloading - no loud cursing or swearing - but everything went on as smoothly as the works of a well adjusted machine..."

And you have Ida B. Wells:

"All my teachers had been the consecrated white men and women from the North who came into the South to teach immediately after the end of the war. It was they who brought us the light of knowledge and their splendid example of Christian courage."

[aegsm76]

Originally Posted by Originalist

Alexis de Tocqueville also said that racial bigotry was stronger where slavery did not exist in American than where it did exist. Those northern States may have been more productive on one hand, but 70% of the tax revenue came from the South and the yanks didn't hesitate to loot the national treasury for their own business and infrastructure interests, something the south opposed.

Can you give me some links for the tax revenue statement? Thanks.

[Fionn mac Cumh]

Most of the people alive cant name one of their relatives who were slaves. To get money as a Native American you have to register and prove your heritage. Do we just give any black person money? Look at Obama, he is part black and his black ancestors werent slaves.

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Fionn mac Cumh

Most of the people alive cant name one of their relatives who were slaves. To get money as a Native American you have to register and prove your heritage. Do we just give any black person money? Look at Obama, he is part black and his black ancestors werent slaves.

The reason I brought up this thread is because a close friend of mine is involved in a relationship with a person who happens to be black. So, now, I get to hear ALL the injustices against the black people - ad nauseum.

I do believe there is racism still, and that includes against all manner of people - Jews included.

What offends me is this person's ranting about the Civil Rights movement as though I had anything to do with it. When I stopped the conversation and said, "Excuse me. I was a child at the time and couldn't have done a thing about it. Don't try putting that guilt on me." Well, she got really quiet then after a light bulb came on that she was pointing fingers at the wrong person. And what do these people she is involved with rant about all day long to make her so angry for heaven's sake. Do something productive with your life and get out of the bitterness.

Go and watch Dr. Carson's story and find out you can work hard and succeed instead of sitting around sucking your thumb and whining.

So, people in my age group are offended by the guilt we are supposed to feel about it.

On that same note, I was watching a WWII documentary which included the grandson of Joseph Goebbels. He was speaking at a Jewish school and an Auschwitz survivor was present. The survivor walks up to the grandson after the speech and tells him, "Don't feel guilty. You were just a child. It had nothing to do with you."

I am also reading a book entitled, A Renegade History of the United States. Actually, I have been reading it off and on for a couple of years, I think. lol

Anyway, one portion of the book cites a study reflecting only 1 to 2%, at most, of the slaves had children by white men. The way you read it in the History books, every single white plantation owner was impregnating their slaves - which is a bald faced lie.

This is how I feel about slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. I had nothing to do with that and I am tired of the White guilt and check your White privilege. It's getting old.

That's my rant for the day.

[Fionn mac Cumh]

I hear ya man. As a white man, I am sick and tired of being blamed for everything that is wrong in the black community. I am sick of it!!! Someone told me that slavery and the civil rights movement is a multi generational issue. I can buy that. But at what point isnt it an issue? Also Dr King (whom I highly look up to and respect) was about equality. Most of these idiots now days want special treatment.