hebegebe: When you have time to read Coates, I will be very interested in your reaction to his arguments. And I will be interested in your rebuttals, if you have any at that point. I assume you will.
Wonder if any URMs who have connections with slaves but not at Georgetown will feel they are not being treated equally/fairly at Georgetown. Really a rhetorical question… Just pondering …
@alh,
Do you have a recommendation for a particular essay? I might be able to read it this weekend.
Georgetown is not directly compensating those who were harmed or their descendents.
I think this explains this…
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/2/12773110/georgetown-slavery-admission-reparations
hebegebe:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
However, his book Between the World and Me would be my recommendation if you are only going to read one thing.
excellent article, dstark. Thank you.
Is the author saying, that in this case reparations would be Georgetown paying the descendants of those enslaved and sold for their unpaid labor, along with (I guess) interest and calculations for inflation, and damages for later negative consequences of the unearned income?
@alh, The author wasn’t that specific. The author mentioned that Georgetown is not compensating for unpaid labor. Then towards the end of the article, the author mentioned a couple of ways to compensate.
The article you linked is amazing. I didn’t learn this stuff in school. If this was taught in schools, maybe we would have better race relations in this country.
I don’t think we are ever going to have full reparations in this country. Some people can’t acknowledge that there is racism. People object to affirmative action. People object to renaming buildings. I just don’t see much in the way of reparations occuring.
Well of course you won’t ever see full reparations. For anything. My Irish ancestors who came here and were told NINA (no Irish need apply) are t going to get anything. I think G is making a nice gesture, one with a little more meat on it than just renaming a building, but no one – slave descendant or otherwise – is “due” reparations.
I didn’t learn it in school either, even though I took enough history classes in college to have been a major, if it had been a time and place students were allowed to have multiple majors. The fact I don’t know any of this history makes me think a lot about who it is that has been telling us all this history, which I think ties back to hebegebe’s reference to “survivorship bias.” I will be interested in his reaction to the article.
Also, I’m slogging my way through the propaganda book, which (I think) also has to do with reevaluating narratives we accept rather uncritically. And kinda wishing I’d take more philosophy and less history. I sort of remember Plato.
http://philosophy.yale.edu/publications/how-propaganda-works
adding: I’m hoping someone else will read it and explain it to me.
@alh, my son was a philosophy major but I don’t think he is going to post here. 
The book is a slog? I don’t want to read anymore slogs. I am reading a book about the history of the republican party and so far the book is a slog.
I agree with your comments about what we are taught about history.
I passed your article on to a couple of friends… A liberal and a conservative. If they read the article, I will be interested in what they say.
Ok, I’ll bite sorghum. How will this be “peculiar”, then?
peculiar: not usual or normal
Do you really not understand the difference between generations of people being enslaved, raped, and tortured due to their race, followed by decades of Jim Crow laws and institutional racism, and Irish immigrants being discriminated against in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s? Or are you being deliberately obtuse?
I don’t feel strongly one way or the other re: reparations, but I can definitely understand why black slave descendants - who still carry much of the burden of their ancestors due to the color of their skin - would be more entitled to any potential reparations that Irish descendants. It’s incomparable. If you want further evidence of the way that black Americans are still facing racism - both interpersonal and institutional - I can point to numerous accounts in the past fifty years. Point me in the direction of an Irish-American who is still facing the repercussions of job discrimination in the twentieth century.
@alh,
Thank you for pointing me to Coates. I read “The Case for Reparations” and found it a very thought-provoking essay. Outside of work, it is rare for me to have to read an article a second time and take notes, but with this essay I did. I am still formulating my response to it though and will get back to you on that part.
I also agree with @dstark (twice now!) that this could be a valuable addition to a the high school curriculum. But the downside of this essay is that it is long and touches on many different points. A discussion of this essay, along with opposing opinions could easily take a week, so I doubt it will ever make it there.
One thing to be mindful of is that there’s already a legally set precedent for reparations for grievous wrongs done to racial/ethnic groups not only internationally, but also domestically as the case of internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII in the '80s though I agree the $20k each received was a tiny pittance compared with the losses sustained as a result of the forcible relocation and later, in many cases, being prevented from returning to their former residential areas due to racist neighbors/local authorities.
All that’s needed is someone or a group who was directly affected to launch a reparations lawsuit and for the judges to rule in his/her favor.
Cobrat - One big difference between the Japanese internment reparations and any slavery reparations contemplated for today is that the internment reparations were paid directly to the individuals who were locked up, not to their great grandchildren or great, great grandchildren.
Unlike the internees, there are no ex-slaves still alive today. If there were they could probably sue and win some substantial reparations for themselves. But are their descendants still entitled some 3 to 5 generations later?
Exactly. Which is why G is giving an admission boost to the descendants, and presumably they will get the same financial aid as normal. They aren’t handing out acceptance letters and checks for $240,000 to ALL descendants.
hebegebe: You are very welcome. Please come back and share your reaction. Thanks in advance.
I very much want to hear your thoughts. Maybe dstark will tell us what his friends thought. That would be interesting as well.
If anyone wants to make a thread for the article, I will participate.
@Scipio, did you read alh’s link?
My wife was born in Levittown in NY. I guess she could live there because her parents were white.
I tell my grown up kids a few things…Not much because I want them to figure things out on their own. That’s good because they want to figure things out on their own. One thing I did tell my kids was that people in their 50’s who are doing well usually own assets. So…own assets.
Which gets me to alh’s link…to see the black community prevented from owning assets in the 19th century and still facing roadblocks today…just blows my mind.
You fight in a war and you can’t participate in a GI bill? You can’t qualify for federal government backed loans so you end up trying to buy homes through horrible contract loans? Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other financial institutions were telling qualified blacks they don’t qualify for low interest or regular loans and then push them into sub prime loans with much larger costs?
The racism is through the roof.
People who were affected by these practices are alive today. The racism of the 19th century and earlier never stopped.
How about German reparations for stealing valuable artwork, homes, murder, science experiments on humans, horrible atrocities, you name it.
It’s a good link, for those of us interested in the history we were never taught. fwiw.
I’ll just take a break.