Slave reparations are not going to happen. We are talking about payments to African Americans who are generations away from their slave ancestors.

Now those who went through Segreagation, I think they do have a case of inhumane discrimination.

I am all for my Irish Ancestors in suing Norway for taking them as slaves during the Dark Ages...

The article is no argument for reparations. It's an extensive list of historical grievances, most of which any semi-educated american will already be familiar with. If there was a single paragraph indicating how these would be funded, or eligibility determined, or what would happen to welfare, AA, other massive public efforts to address the "equity" issue, then I missed it.

"It's just the right thing to do!" doesn't hold up if the program in question will bankrupt or irreparably divide a nation. But Coates can only ever do one thing, which is enumerate complaints. The hard work of thinking through implications-- whatev, someone else can do that.

It is a very good article, it is thought provoking. However it is also a mismash of serious wrongs. In many ways the best thing to come out of this some serious comprehensive housing legislation to spot and end redlining.

I don't even think the injustice that those in Mississippi went through during Segregation would even get reparations. Ironically those who will block it, are those who are probably against some of the most important legislation in US History, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. They will use those pieces of legislation as justification for refusing reparations for inhumanity of Segregation..

That one Chappelle's Show skit. Nuff said :P

Never going to happen.

It would be great if we could redefine reparations for a case like this, when the direct victims are long-dead but their descendants suffer currently from related issues (poverty; less stable families; discrimination in hiring, education, arrest and imprisonment; less access to mental and physical health care; traumatic living conditions; etc.). It would be fantastic to seriously cut the roots of these issues as a form of reparations.

Will I be recompensed for being driven off my homeland, and for all those low flying 747s?

Half my family came here from Germany to avoid the draft in WWI. The other half came here from Poland as refugees after half of their family were killed in the initial Nazi invasion of Poland. You can say whatever you want, but the fact that people in another part of the country, a century and a half ago, abused some people's ancestors, doesn't entitle them to money, any more than I can demand money from the current German government.

Trying to get reparations paid is a waste of time. Priority should be given to social and educational outreach to help lift downtrodden African-American families out of poverty. Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish, etc.

Outlawing redlining is one thing, getting rid of the pernicious offspring of redlining (local school district funding) is another. Eliminating this vestige of Jim Crow is long overdue.

FINALLY!! The case can be made against Rome for the enslavement of the Germans and French 2000 years ago. PAY UP ROME!!!!!

@11,
Agree. The fact that Coates is taking this seriously seems odd to me.

Indeed, it will never happen. Imagine the administration of it? Not all African-Americans are descendants of American slaves. Examples are Pres. Obama and AG Eric Holder. As I understand it, the latter's family is from Barbados.

There doesn't need to be reparations to individuals. However, we do need to give reparations for shit services, opportunities lost, and shitty education given to our black citizens (or poor minority citizens in general).

I suppose I'm in favor, insofar as the only direct way to lift people out of poverty is to give them money.

From what I gather, though, this is an extremely unpopular observation.

@17, I think it depends on how you would implement reparations. If we really were a just society that provided real opportunity for education and an honest non-discriminatory safety net I don't think the talk of reparations would be out there as something anyone would seriously talk about.

But we aren't a just society that is willing to provide for all of it's citizens so we get to talk about it

@18

The observation I believe to be unpopular is that the only direct way to lift people out of poverty is to give them money.

It's a tautology, of course. But it still appears to be extremely unpopular.

@16 - Yes, I don't think they could be called reparations for political reasons, but another War on Poverty or something would be welcome. Correcting the years of terrible services/education we've provided as a nation would be a great project.

Affirmative acton and the overhaul of welfare laws were meant as the "reparations" that several posters above suggest would be better solutions than cutting checks.

Of course, affirmative action has been gutted recently and the welfare system is being bilked by white people who blame it on black people, so these projects could have gone better.

It's funny that Dan is comparing this to Sullivan's 1989 article. Reparations is not a new issue. The issue of same-sex marriage was new in the late 80s. It didn't come out of the ether, of course - there's a semiregular Slog contributor who tried to get a marriage license for a same sex wedding over 40 years ago, but that was acknowledged to be more of a stunt than a serious attempt to gain legal recognition for his relationship.

But people have been pressing the issue of reparations for decades now, with little success. As @ 1 points out, there is nothing coming out of anyone's pocket by extending marriage equality to same sex couples (aside from bigoted businesses who find themselves on the wrong side of an antidiscrimination lawsuit). And although there may be many more practical reasons why this will always face stiff resistance, such as how do you calculate reparations, from whom do you collect them (not all white people are descended from antebellum settlers, let alone slave owners), and the like, ultimately asking people to pony up for this at all will evoke resistance at that point alone.

The issue is how to break the system that impoverishes minorities and denies them opportunities that white people take for granted, while acknowledging that a huge segment of our society is still racist and can find creative ways to keep institutional racism alive (I'm thinking of school choice here).

@ 19, giving people money doesn't lift them out of poverty, unless they invest it sensibly. That's the problem. Look at how lottery winners often end up bankrupt.

I'm glad all these white people have such well informed opinions justifying why they don't have to pay for slavery!

Giving piles if money to the poor, dysfunctional, and those with "give me a dollar" chips on their shoulders does not help them. Pity handouts to the American Indian is a real success story isn't it?

It seems most people who are commenting did not read the article. This is not merely about reparations for slavery but for decades of discriminatory practices, often backed by federal and local governments, that led to the current racial inequality in America.

Reparations can take many forms other than just cash to individuals, but the historical wrongs perpetrated against African Americans are undeniable. Those who think blacks should just "get over it" are like Coates describes in the article--expecting a black man to stop bleeding the moment after he's been stabbed 10 times.

Reparations is a much heavier lift than gay marriage. For all the fuss made about it, same sex marriage is ultimately costing the opposition nothing but the money they spent fighting it. It even generates a little extra business for service providers.

Reparations, whatever form they take, will come at a cost to elites, whether it's in higher taxes or reallocating funds currently lining their pockets. While there's a case to be made that a well designed program would overall benefit the country and be beneficial to the economy, those broad benefits will come at a cost to the movers and shakers.

Reparations also represent a greater ideological threat than same sex marriage. While it really affects heteros not at all beyond a knee jerk reaction to change, reparations would be different. They'd be a public acknowledgement that the myth of the self made man is a lie. Rather than pretending that a wealthy man got that way solely through virtue and hard work, their ancestor's roles in exploitation and theft are given a spotlight. Going to be a lot harder to get powerful parties behind that.

The wronged should look to the parties who committed the original grievance, those who first put them under the yoke of slavery. They will find them in darkest Africa, still enslaving their foes. ( http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-272… ).

Coates makes a compelling emotional argument. But that's all it is. Emotion.

We can't get workable healthcare - that benefits every single citizen and makes perfect rational sense - with out protracted battles and obscene political monkey wrenching.

But somehow we'll find a way implement slave reparations for 130 year old injustices that will only go to a tiny sliver of society?

How fucking delusional do you have to be to believe that shit is ever going to happen.

And no, in 100 years we won't look back on this as a watershed moment.

Unless you mean that literally we will be scouring the hell-scape geography of Climate Changed America for actual water-sheds. We will have more important fish to fry.

Native American Reservations.

Bad idea. Let's get people integrated and turn that land back into national parks and suburbs.

Say the r-word and no one can think straight. Wouldn't it make far more sense to initiate several class-action lawsuits against banks, schools, etc for redlining, unfair loans and mortgages, discriminatory school zoning, and so forth?

That does seem to be the way things work.

As I expected, the commenters here haven't read the article.

It's not about slavery. Talking about slavery is proof positive that you haven't read it. Calling it "emotional" is as well. Talking about what happens in Africa is just plain ignorant.

It's about 500 years of the taking of black wealth: outright theft. That theft is still occurring today. The recent mortgage crisis was in large part white bankers competitively selling subprime mortgages to black families ("mud people" they called them, in documentary evidence) who mostly qualified for better ones, and then took the houses back after the crisis. Some of these banks have paid penalties. None of these penalties have been paid to the people from whom the money was stolen.

Coates calmly lays out the evidence. It is devastating. In Chicago, contract sellers would sell houses to black families (for twice what they were worth), but instead of a mortgage (which they were legally not able to get), they would pay a contract, monthly, which would revert the title to them once they paid it off but if they were so much as late three days eleven years into the contract, boom, the house was taken back. It was not uncommon for contract sellers to sell the same house three or four times over to different families.

In Seattle, we may not have had contract sales but we sure as hell had restrictive deeds and redlining. If you own a house in this area built before 1968, the copy of your deed down at the courthouse probably forbids you from selling it to a black family. Illegal, unenforceable, but hard to remove.

If you do want to talk about slavery, we can talk about how it didn't end in 1863 or 1865; it ended, IF it ended, in about 1945, when the practice of debt peonage was finally stopped. This was the technique by which white-owned (often Northern-owned) corporations would place orders for black labor to Southern sheriffs, who would then go out and roust a few dozen young black men, arrest them, and then fine them some amount they couldn't possibly pay. The company would pay the fine instead, with the proviso that they would work off the money in the factory or mine -- which was forever, since their net pay after room and board was taken out was negative.

There are hundreds of documented cases of outright taking: the Klan would drive you off your farm, or the neighboring farmer would just take it. Blacks had no recourse in law until quite recently.

The result of all this was a theft of wealth. Housing and land has always been the main form of wealth in American families. You all depend on that wealth today, if you have parents who owned a house, or put you through school, or merely gave you the outlook, habits and skills of a wealth-accruer. Those were taken from black families.

This isn't a discussion about welfare or affirmative action or any of the other hot-button topics that clog the racial discussion in this country. It's about redressing a specific wrong, a financial wrong: a theft, pure and simple.

Saying "oh, it can never happen" is bullshit too. What you're saying is "we shouldn't even talk about it". We shouldn't even discuss it or research it? Why? Because it makes you uncomfortable to know that the very foundation and daily operation of this country has always depended and depends still on stealing from some of its inhabitants?

I say screw you. Let's talk about it. Let's find out what happened. Let's redress that grievance. To say otherwise is to say that America isn't really a civilized country, it's a kleptocracy.

@34 is right.
This is what the courts are for.

So Fnarf why don't you sell your house on lily white Phinny Ridge and buy some impoverished black families 40 acres and a mule.

Thank you, Fnarf.

@35 All right. Talk about it. Who say you can't talk about it? All you DO is talk, Fnarf.

You and Coates outline how it will all be legislated, managed and implemented. Determine for me right now how much money we will need and to whom it will go. Determine how much each citizen will need to pay. What share do we each pay?

I will write that check right now. I will put my money where my mouth is, right now. I will set that money aside for along as it takes. It's fuck tone more than you've done or will ever do. I'm totally serious.

Just let me know.

@39, READ THE ARTICLE, OK?

Coates doesn't outline the program. He doesn't have a program. He's asking for a commission to study the issue and make recommendations. Which is what John Conyers (D-MI) has been asking the House to do for 25 years with HB 40. Is that too much to ask? Instead of pulling out your dick and trying to measure everything with it?

@39 : Did you read the article ? Someone's been trying to get a bill through Congress that would do exactly that :

"Broach the topic of reparations today and a barrage of questions inevitably follows: Who will be paid? How much will they be paid? Who will pay? But if the practicalities, not the justice, of reparations are the true sticking point, there has for some time been the beginnings of a solution. For the past 25 years, Congressman John Conyers Jr., who represents the Detroit area, has marked every session of Congress by introducing a bill calling for a congressional study of slavery and its lingering effects as well as recommendations for “appropriate remedies.”

A country curious about how reparations might actually work has an easy solution in Conyers’s bill, now called HR 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. We would support this bill, submit the question to study, and then assess the possible solutions. But we are not interested."

Do we have to be fucking delusional to think passing HR 40 is ever going to happen ?

@37, we already know that you are an opponent of reparations or any other kind of racial justice. Come back when you've got something new to say.

@39 : Did you read the article ? Someone's been trying to get a bill through Congress that would do exactly that :

"Broach the topic of reparations today and a barrage of questions inevitably follows: Who will be paid? How much will they be paid? Who will pay? But if the practicalities, not the justice, of reparations are the true sticking point, there has for some time been the beginnings of a solution. For the past 25 years, Congressman John Conyers Jr., who represents the Detroit area, has marked every session of Congress by introducing a bill calling for a congressional study of slavery and its lingering effects as well as recommendations for “appropriate remedies.”

A country curious about how reparations might actually work has an easy solution in Conyers’s bill, now called HR 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. We would support this bill, submit the question to study, and then assess the possible solutions. But we are not interested."

Do we have to be fucking delusional to think passing HR 40 is ever going to happen ?

I am very grateful that Fnarf and the unregistered commenter @32 showed up. Up to those points in the conversation, the comments here left me in despair over the basic lack of both decency and reading comprehension.

@40 Yeah. That's what I thought you'd say.

Look. No thinking compassionate person disregards the toll of systemic and institutional racism. Most of us are aware, okay. All you have done is yet another catalog and liturgy of all the shit we all already know about like some bush league talk radio host. But no solution.

It does fuck all. The ONLY issue is what we do about it and how. That's all that matters. The rest are tired fucking platitudes.

A lot of very dedicated and smart people have attempted to tackle the issue of racial injustices with varying degrees of success (people with more than a community college educations, I might add). And reparations have been tossed out by most of them as un-fucking-workable.

So instead we attempt to craft a better social welfare, education and justice system though the current flawed political machinery. And it's really hard. But it's not some theoretical fantasy like reparations.

But. That's the best we got so far.

And looks like you don't know any different.

But in the off chance you actually figure out how to do reparations, my check book is waiting. So knock off the lecturing Cliff Claven martyr bullshit, already.

@43 I know. And it's been done and studied before.

The fact is that bill is entirely a farcical show pony for Conyers constituents.

But, hey, go ahead. Work to get it passed. I'll write my congress person, too.

In fact. Fuck that.

Why don't you and Fnarf and me and everybody else sympathetic just make a rough guess on how much it should cost us all and write those checks. Maybe convince other people to do it, too.

We'll keep that money in an interest earning account/escrow. And in the trillion to one chance something actually get's legislated - in say 15 years - we will donate that. And even if not we can donate to another racial justice organization.

I got my checkbook out right now. Put up or shut up.

Citing the ethically challenged John Conyers and his content-free HR40 is just more can-kicking. The last thing this country needs is a freaking blue ribbon commission to study "the legacy of slavery," and that's the only concrete proposal in HR40. I'd suggest reading it, it's a lot shorter than Coates' article.

@46 Exactly.

Notice how when you say "figure out how it works" or "okay, let's pay up, then - how much?"

Crickets. Everybody heads for the hills.

Yup. Everybody loves to be self righteous dicks. Yet. It's always somebody else that has to figure out the details and pay the bills.

This is one of things I'd just love to be proven wrong about.

@43 BTW as for Conyers bill - let us disregard the fact that HB40 is political vapor-ware, if the bill was serious you realize it would be political suicide to bring up reparations in the Teabagger congress, right?

That answers Coates rather naive question right there.

Christ almighty. We can barely, just barely, get the ACA passed and protected from near monthly GOP sabotage and you guys think reparations - even if they could work or were fair - are possible to legislate?

I haven't read any comments ,but I'll bet there's more than a few apologists (for the SStatuSS KKKwo) ,doling out their easy-to-refute arguments!!! :D --- http://www.blackagendareport.com , http://www.sevenstories.com , http://blackrosebooks.net .

I admit to total ignorance of John Conyers and his nefarious motives, but reading the text of the bill it looks like it says exactly what TNC's article suggests it says.

@45 : It's not either/or though. If you have no interest in discussing the subject of reparations because you think it's pointless, then don't discuss the subject of reparations.

That's where I can see Dan's gay marriage parallel though. I agree the two issues are unlikely to work out the same way, as others have pointed out gay marriage doesn't pick anyone's literal pocket and talk of reparations isn't new, but I remember articles from way back when of gay advocates arguing against fighting for gay marriage - it was, after all, a theoretical fantasy that distracted from actual realistic and pressing issues like housing and job discrimination or DADT. Now to be fair it would have been hard to predict in advance that gay marriage would take off the way it did, and it didn't fix everything, but nor has it done much harm to all those other causes, that I know of.

Nor do I see how TNC writing an article in support of reparations endangers our efforts to craft a better social welfare, education and justice system though the current flawed political machinery.

@49: "BTW as for Conyers bill - let us disregard the fact that HB40 is political vapor-ware, if the bill was serious you realize it would be political suicide to bring up reparations in the Teabagger congress, right? "

No, I really don't realize that. If anything I'd think making Teabaggers froth at the mouth would be politically beneficial for some Democrats. Of course it would be political suicide for Republicans to support such a bill, but it's political suicide for Republicans to support so many things these days. That's why this congress is dysfunctional even by congressional standards. I didn't know that meant magazine writers shouldn't discuss policy anymore.

Well-meaning people are quibbling here on the difficulties inherent in the practical implementation of reparations. And they're correct. But what can it possibly hurt just to take the idea of reparations seriously? The discussion can be catharctic, and even if reparations get dissipated into general social programs, at least that's something, for crying out loud. Anticipation of failure is at least a big a cop-out as knee-jerk rhetorical support for Coates' argument.

@34 and 36 with the complex interplay of the discriminatory policies over a long period of time, and the involvement of government entities, any serious litigation would be impossible. Statutes of limitation, concepts like proximate cause, sovereign immunity, red judicata would be just be a few reasons those lawsuits would be dismissed or kicked by summary judgment

I encourage everyone to read this article by Maureen Tkacik in the Baffler about the Atlantic

the Atlantic seems designed to make cultural liberals more right wing on traditional political issues like foreign policy and distribution of wealth. most of their readership is white. studies show that white people get more conservative when race is brought up. white defiance seems to b the horsepower of the republican party. a call for the electoral majority to pay up to an electoral minority is a blatant loser

http://www.thebaffler.com/past/omniscien…

feminism works because half of us r women

@42
I guess I don't have the privileged of crying about racism while living in an all white enclave.

Way to dodge the question.

BTW, I've done more for people of color than your empty social justice rhetoric ever will.

@56, it's happened. Wells Fargo was targeting black people and Latinos with subprime loans even when they qualified for prime loans. They were sued and have to pay $432.5 million.

Why can't comprehensive efforts do this for older instances of systemic discrimination? Swiss banks were forced to pay restitution 50 years after the Holocaust. And honestly, if they can't, we should probably leave the government out of it. It's massively unfair, but these remedies tend not to work and are subject to dodging and abuse. If the NAACP or the ACLU or someone or something had actively targeted and focused programs to get minorities into good houses in good neighborhoods, and good schools, etc. positive change will probably will happen faster.

Yes, the old "twice as good" remedy. Yes, it's massively unfair. But what choice do we have?

Wells Fargo info: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29…

I'm half black, and I ask this about so called "reparations":
My black ancestors were enslaved by the descendents of the French, English, Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch. So, it looks like the French, English, Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch of today owe me something. Okay...but I'm only half African. I'm also half Italian. And guess what that means?
My ancestors (the Romans) enslaved the ancestors of the English, French, Portuguese, Spaniards, and Dutch. So, I guess we're even-Steven, because my Roman side was just as bad to them as they were to my African side.

Honestly, why do we of Roman blood get off the hook? I mean we only brutalized and enslaved most of Europe for a few centuries and trained those barbarians how to lick our sandals clean. Why don't we ever get some of the hate too? And we killed Jesus! We did it, not the Jews! Give credit where it's due.

At the very least those whining about how today's whites owe today's blacks should also be whining about how Italians owe the Basque. After all, if it wasn't for us invading Iberia and spreading our (superior) Latin language Spanish wouldn't exist and the Basque wouldn't we a minority. Does that mean the Italian government owes them?

And we never even said we're sorry. Nations and individuals have apologized for what Americans did to blacks. When was the last time you heard an Italian say "I'm sorry for killing Boudica" to an Englishman?

And may the record show that I doubt most of us would apologize. I big part of me would LOVE to have lived back in the good old days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVKjzUhy…

Now, if a white southern had posted a video of the Confederacy in the Civil War, the Stranger posters would be in an uproar...I post a video of my ancestors kicking some German barbarian ass, and I doubt anyone will call me a racist.

Bottom line is: THE PAST IS THE PAST! Nobody owes anybody shit. Deal with it.

@59 There are lots of reasons that civil claims can't solve systemic problems caused by slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, red lining, etc. A few examples are: You can't sue a person or entity for doing things that weren't unlawful when they did them. Civil claims generally have to be made within a time period between 2 and 10 years of the time the wrong occurred (less, when a governmental entity is the defendant). Most of the people now harmed by these systemic problems were not directly acted upon by the person or entity that committed the wrong, and therefore lack standing. These are a few reasons why a major legislative effort to correct these systemic problems would be necessary to cure this shameful part of our national history

But look at all the anti-affirmative action lawsuits that are successful. There's about 1 every year, they all challenge existing explicit law, and they all win because they appeal to higher Constitutional principles (and sympathetic judges). If it works for teenagers not getting into the university they wanted, why can't it work for a black middle-class businessman who couldn't buy a house in a middle-class neighborhood? If they can show ongoing damage stemming directly from the decision, shouldn't the time period not be an issue?

@63 maybe it shouldn't be, but it is, unless the legislature changes the law. And focusing on that middle-class black businessman that lives today misses the point. Who do you sue when you're a poor black kid in south Chicago whose grandmother couldn't buy a house in a neighborhood where there might be some economic development, and couldn't buy a house at all on the same terms a white person could?

Individual reparations are a non-starter and even talking about them give the GOP another freakout point. What is more plausible is for social reparations to be paid. We know that cities give shit services in minority neighborhoods. We know that those schools suck. We know that employment opportunities are often limited. We know that our laws are often written and implemented in ways to punish minorities. So if there are reparations, it needs to go to these items.

@65 I would gladly vote for a free condom for you. You are a dick from which the world needs protection.

@66 I agree with you that effective reparations would have to take place on a larger scale than paying individuals money. They might start with correcting racially-motivated voter ID laws, a reexamining of our willingness to accept goods bought from sweatshops, a big influx of money to spur basic industry in our blighted urban areas, and a change in law enforcement culture. Oh, and good schools for everyone, pre-K for everyone, and healthcare for everyone

@69 I am completely willing to believe that there's no chance that you might accidentally impregnate someone. Much to your disappointment, I'm sure

@61,
Spot on partner. You deserve a beer with yours truly.
Cheers!

I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE how every time reparations or hate crimes or any other political race related issue comes up, every single commenter claims to either be

1- Half or fully minority (because people dont lie on the internet to make vapid racist arguments derp der!)

2- Not descended from anyone who was alive in the US prior to WW2. I guess all the white americans died in the war, and the only ones left to have children where very recent immigrants. I also guess this isnt the internet and people dont bullshit/lie to defend the indefendable.

If you are focused on the details of how reparations would work or the likelihood that they will ever be awarded by Congress, you are kind of missing the point of Coates' article. He's not proposing a detailed program he thinks the government should adopt. He's laying out the historical case for why black people deserve reparations. As a historian, writer and intellectual, that's his contribution. It's up to policy experts and politicians to figure out practicalities and up to the citizenry to put pressure on our politicians if we think it's a worthy cause.

It's hilarious to me that someone in a comments section thinks they've have won the argument by saying, "Tell me exactly how such a program would work. If you can't, then your full of shit." None of us are claiming to be policy experts.

You truly are a dick Dan, did you even read all that utter garbage meant to mind fuck good people and inject Republican subtle racism like poison into an already fuct in the head Mantality.

I especially can't stand the excerpts authored by the master of subtle racist bigotry Kevin which begins after the bullshit fabricated story written supposedly by a slave as his family was being split up by being sold to different slaves:

The next day, I stationed myself by the side of the road, along which the slaves, amounting to three hundred and fifty, were to pass. The purchaser of my wife was a Methodist minister, who was about starting for North Carolina. Pretty soon five waggon-loads of little children passed, and looking at the foremost one, what should I see but a little child, pointing its tiny hand towards me, exclaiming, “There’s my father; I knew he would come and bid me good-bye.” It was my eldest child! Soon the gang approached in which my wife was chained. I looked, and beheld her familiar face; but O, reader, that glance of agony! may God spare me ever again enduring the excruciating horror of that moment! She passed, and came near to where I stood. I seized hold of her hand, intending to bid her farewell; but words failed me; the gift of utterance had fled, and I remained speechless. I followed her for some distance, with her hand grasped in mine, as if to save her from her fate, but I could not speak, and I was obliged to turn away in silence.

and his fucked up references to gripping unsuspecting victims with audio recordings with his utter bullshit use of

“tied like a slave.”

*see you letters received from Savage Love Appearance Verifucts Everything

The stupid asshole is using some of the greatest atrocities to a people that the world has every known in his latest scheme: a bigot continuing racism by distracting from really ending the denial and fucked up treatment of all non-caucasians, but especially African Americans.

And in the article you link, he takes stabs at African Americans themselves, as if nobody can begin to fathom how fucked up it is to not value another human being, but put a monetary price and assign it to them, and now fuck-heads like you two will suddenly gasp and

as if you understand, but to only see how bad it really is when he does the extremely fucked up task of assigning a dollar amount

Notice how all the instances fucking bigot extraordinaire Kevin, uses the term "we" in the first essay on reparations he is speaking about himself and the whites that owe?

Kevin ends his portion of the most subtle, and most poisonous Republican bigoted essay ever written, the phonetic underhanded names used in the stories which aren't true (Belinda Royall and Isaac Royall) and that utter assholes love of the worst author in the history of English language -- unless you are an old school grammar Nazi -- Shakespeare:

The face of your Petitioner, is now marked with the furrows of time, and her frame bending under the oppression of years, while she, by the Laws of the Land, is denied the employment of one morsel of that immense wealth, apart whereof hath been accumilated by her own industry, and the whole augmented by her servitude.
WHEREFORE, casting herself at your feet if your honours, as to a body of men, formed for the extirpation of vassalage, for the reward of Virtue, and the just return of honest industry—she prays, that such allowance may be made her out of the Estate of Colonel Royall, as will prevent her, and her more infirm daughter, from misery in the greatest extreme, and scatter comfort over the short and downward path of their lives.

Yet the dumb fucker forgot about that dumbass writing style of using F for S (or whatever the fuck that was all about in the original Declaration and Constitution)

If team high budget think tank really gave a shit about the damage done to African Americans -- instead of whatever slimy political pins he is setting up to later knock down which has something to do private schools, charter schools, and public schooling)

it mister bigot himself cared, he would spend his time doing something to fix what is wrong, he would do something that would encourage assholes like him to treat non-caucasians like humans, equal humans which obviously even the people whose job it is to be unbiased, and delivery blind justice -- Our Judicial System -- has proven itself FUCT with the judgement on Treyvon's murder, and that is just the only one that got publicized, America doesn't give shit about the ones that aren't.

if these assholes really gave a shit they would be concerned with doing the only thing that possibly begin to heal the wounds Our Country has afflicted

by ending bigotry towards other races,

You fucking snobby, P.O.S political journalists are the lowest forms of existence, not even whale shit at the bottom of the ocean can come near the lows you'll stoop to

FUCK YOU

pay what monetary amount you can you can calculate, but if you think not ceasing and desisting on all the subtle bullshit ways you intimidate and continue on in blind arrogance to carry on bigotry

OF ANY DEMOGRAPHIC

then you haven't done shit except for add insult to injury

Paying the money is easy dumbfuck, you might want to open up a deposit account for that, and begin debating about how you'll change

but then you'd have to really address the problem instead of these bullshit distractions

You can see the knee jerk reactions to the mere title of the article and see that several people didn't even bother to read it.

I bet they are the ones who do the most talking about the subject.

sigh.....

Oh I read both articles milemarker,

I have no problem respecting people whose opinions are: reparations should be paid

I have no problem respecting people whose opinions are: reparations should not be paid

I have a big problem, huge problem with media that pull constant mind fucks, manipulation, or any type of political lies that are meant to play a persons emotions against them, which is what bullshitting does.

These articles are NOT about racism, reparations, or what people can do to solve the real problems or being so ignorant to believe that racism no longer exists.

It's a couple of egotistical very rich think tankers, want to be anarchists, beginning their next political score. Who knows if they are just getting paid to slander progressives whom the Conservative party feels awful threatened by, or if they are butt hurt journalists exacting pay-back setting the stage to get executive school officials fired that they did in County Govt.

who knows and who the fuck cares when all they are doing is spewing political bullshit

they don't give a fuck about the bigoted view point non-caucasians experience everyday. They are just trying to get any progressive movement to shoot themselves in the foot, like getting the media to go nuts of dipshit Don Sterling.

this phonetic "Tennessee" author either isn't African American or he is just a cold calculated narcissistic asshole who only gives a shit about people that can give him what he wants

hence to disgusting sarcasm "Aid to Families With Dependent Children was originally written largely to exclude blacks—yet by the 1990s it was perceived as a giveaway to blacks.(here asshole is insinuating that things like foodstamps or any govt. assistance is unrecognized reparation) 

What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—{sarcasm} more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. {/sarcasm}

Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag."

his whole attitude is littered with with the most subtle sarcasm such as

"“The idea that Affirmative Action justifies white resentment may be the greatest argument made for reparations—like ever.”"

when a piece of shit journalist writes "like" and uses it in a fashion similar to 80s slang or the movie Valley Girl, he being a dick and mocking you

the unmistakable red flag that the author is a manipulative asshole (and so is Dan for baiting everyone with this horseshit) is the signature images mister bigot uses which have been altered so that erudite assholes can laugh at you when you don't catch it (see the first article is the asshole's series wherein the image shows a man's feet dangling from a tree, and take a good look at the hue of the skin of the lynch mob)

I don't care how clever or how funny this dickhead thinks it is, it isn't funny

I don't care how cold he may be to not care, people who show no respect to others simply because there is nothing we can do to stop him, are exactly the personalities that destroy communities

It's authors like the people who wrote these essays (and it's more than one, it's a team of dipshits, wanna-be anarchists/extortionists) these people are responsible for so many people not having a clue about the real issues that affect the masses and are in the dark about govt.

These are type of people who post bullshit stories, and then criticize you for taking them seriously. THEY ARE THE ONES WHO POST LIES BUT SUDDENLY YOU ARE THE ASSHOLE BECAUSE YOU BELIEVED THEM??

No assholes play your emotions against you, they make it hard to be human when they take every urge to do right, everything that is honest, good and loving and make you afraid to use those emotions because you've been burnt by swindlers just like them.

They make it point to post fallacy (like the mortgage assistance to veterans in the original G.I bill) There are plenty of angles to work that are legitimate for any side of a political issue, there is no need to make up shit, the worst part is that now there is a slough of other bullshit poisoning the interwebs because every lie told requires ten times the amount of lies in other places on the web in order to appear fact checkable.

read some of the other articles written by "the new definition of anarchist = conman"

to all anarchists out there you should be furious, this asshole is selling you out

to all Conservatives, the information age is here, hiring these assholes to do internet politic work will come back to byte you,

to liberals, progressives, Democrats, the second you realize someone is trying to give you enough rope to hang yourselves, steer clear, I don't care how rich they fools are or how much influence they have in the media. These are the assholes at the root of what is fundamentally wrong the America, and the entire world

The North did it because they were convinced by People like Lincoln who understood the meaning of self-evidence, like Jefferson equated the tree of liberty to the tree of knowledge. Call it whatever you want to call it, there are some people who understand why we are here, and how there is not freedom that comes without a mandatory responsibility. Lincoln did not want to live his life and at it's end, after the fact when it's too late to do any good, finally figure out the requirements to deserve this life.

When you recognize those feelings, you don't deny them, they are Truths, and you Trust that dying while doing right is better than living doing wrong, no matter if you are the only one who gives a shit about it,

It was kind of funny that the way the asshole wrote, it was like "Oh, now I understand why, without treating US like animals, you would have had to pay your peers to do the labor, and that means you would only have one tenth of the wealth you have now, what was I thinking? of course I'll endure your wicked, uncaring, hateful evil ways, I wouldn't want you to loose over half your wealth, had you told me that from the beginning..."

Who gives a rats ass, the Southerners were not fighting for the life, that's bullshit, they were fighting for the ridiculously obscene life of luxury without paying for it or doing the work.

I don't see how anyone who is not so cold blooded or hateful and racists (possibly just disgustingly stupid and ignorant) even if they had their life sayings invested in it, better to take the loss and not commit wrongs that cause you to not deserve to live as a human being

We are talking people, other fucking human beings, and people are still to stupid to be honest with yourself, and then you have asshole journalists like Dan and the fucker who wrote this garbage, and all the elitist pieces of shit who will claim how disappointed they are that people get so emotional about it, after all you're only being mind fucked in regards to the seriousness of the value of human life.

Dipshit et al, could have pulled a hoax about any other subject, I don't care if the author is African American, it's bullshit to sabotage something that you claim to want to fix

fuck them, they don't want it fixed, these fuckers couldn't care less, they only care about being able to control the minds of the public

so make sure when they come at you today trying to make you all feell like assholes for "knee-jerk" reactions, tell them to fuck-off, it is your duty to tell people like this to fuck-off, do not let them tell you to mind your own business, if you don't being mindfucked, don't sit still and allow these asshole to do it to another person

don't worry if you inadvertently feel on the racist side of tone, realize how wrong it is that when we are not careful, it is easy to let assholes like the author tease racism out of you, that may not have even been there.

Your job is to not let unrecognized privilege cloud your brain so fucking bad to allow racism, or the firm grip of denial allow you to justify actions like these journalists did.

they do this shit all the time

but the power of their lies and manipulation is quickly dwindling

@80 Using that argument, that there was no economic benefit for free labor, then you'd have to first answer why the south had slavery to begin with. Was it only because they really, really didn't like black people? I think not.

I read the fucking article, I read all of Coates articles, and every single rich white ivy league fuckwit who collaborated with asshole Coates (whether he is brown, black, white, or polka dotted) if he wasn't being such a dick about a serious issue, then why the fuck did he fabricate parts of the story?

Why did he include complete bullshit details that never happened?

as if there aren't enough actually wrongs that are still done to this day

the point behind this article was political, racist (even if he is black) selling out and offering youself to be the fictional credited author of this, the most dangerous type of bigotry as they can pass it off as being a racial equality activist by doing nothing more than employing subtlety and lying about it

and there will be assholes deniers but what makes it worse is that these assholes try to turn around and claim their "testing of you"

leaves them disappointed, as if it's so sad that the guilty bigot makes the innocent bigot feel bad

the only thing that is disappointing is that assholes like these guys pull this shit off, all the fucking time. That level of ego for the most part amounts to pathological levels, criminal levels, and rapist levels as they do not respect your personal, private space.

these are same fuckers that justify hacking your computer because your firewall isn't good enough to stop a IT professional,

the same fuckers who see nothing wrong with recording people without their knowledge or consent by gripping your car and house, or being "tied like a slave"

fuck them, they have the diseased mindframe, and not the people who were willing to give asshole the benefit of the doubt and believe these pathetic essays were genuine

@80 Because it was profitable for large slaveholders but not for the country at large. And not even for huge numbers of white southerners. Several hundred thousand Irish were shipped over into indentured servitude in the South. Did they benefit? You could ask their Appalachian descendants.

If the question of reparations focused on identifying large estates of existing wealth that derives directly from slave plantations, and seizing some portion of that, you might have an argument. But these are exactly the kinds if details that Coates and Conyers purposely avoid.

@61: Reparations are an issue here because African-Americans are still suffering from the effects of slavery: poverty, disenfranchisement, and institutionalized racism. Wales isn't currently a shithole as the result of the Romans killing Boudica, and Italy's not currently affected by the Germanic invasion known as the Fall of Rome.
Now, I don't support just going out and giving money to descendants of slaves. I say we're better off using public funds to give poor black neighborhoods access to better education, break up food deserts in the inner cities, establish social programs to help poor youth become successful and productive members of society, and other such initiatives. Of course, you'd oppose all of that because you think that collectivism sucks.

sorry I wasn't clear

why did the author fabricate examples of wrongs done to African Americans when there were clearly countless examples of real life events that actually happened?

Why didn't he/she/they tell us, the reader, that it was more than one author and that they are not of African Descent? it's manipulative and negates the few actual examples they give

Why would they choose to alter the image that shows what is supposed to be a lynched human being, and African American, and not have the respect to use an image unedited?

Why would they sarcastically write about Belinda Royall and Isaac Royall in a made up case?

Why would he fabricate the Magazine "the Debow's" magazine?

why did he not use actual wrongs done to African people as opposed to mock a very serious and sensitive issue?

You may feel the need to defend people like that, who believe this is a good subject to write a spoof essay? esp one that mocks the topic, and has the gall to turn around and accuse people's reactions to such a vile and pathological level disrespect, that the cold blooded vicious people have the nerve to call people's reaction racist?

or turnaround and claim that they are disappointed in the Anybody's reaction to this seriously disturbing, and not at all humorous piece of trash writing?

I will do you the favor of not baiting you and tell you that those examples they gave are fabricated

To run with the notion that it cannot be proved is foolish, and places way too much faith in their ability to use tricks and gimmicks to fool people.

The are real responsible people who care about the truth that maintain databases (like the good people a West Law)

Physical record at file as opposed to faked digital media presented on the web, as some people at the Library of Congress do take these things seriously

SO I am wondering what kind of a person it takes to think it was a good idea to pull this crap with such a sensitive topic, it is all very well thought out and completely premeditated, it just seems pretty fucked up and and extremely disrespectful

even for sloggers

right nova,

It's my job to cite this tabloid journalism?

if the author gave a shit, and wanted to use real life events, he would done it, and he would have cited his sources.

Perhaps that was part of his point, to completely bullshit everyone, this topic was not a good choice to pull this stunt, and it shows incredibly low class to then claim disappointment in peoples reactions

why is this the turning point and not the William J Wilson article he cribbed his history and his watered down version of the policy measures from (and without credit that I saw)?

http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/CMSFiles/Poli…

now I'm definitely not accusing him of plagiarism, but he does use a lot of the exact same examples. So what's the difference? Is it that Wilson makes actual policy recommendations and acknowledges the complex interplay of cultural and economic forces while Coates boils it all down to sloganeering about race and writes for a magazine that effete petit-bourgeois liberals can read over their Starbucks and greek yogurt?

Whither the goddamn left in this country? Is this really what we're reduced to?

@94

Forget it AC. The increasingly strange ideation and decline in communications ability indicate someone slipping deeper into mental illness, untreated brain injury, heavy drug use, or some combination of the three. The bizarre misandrist ravings can be entertaining, but they never reach a coherent level of substantive discourse.

@70 you are being entirely too sensible.

@87
As I said, the Basque country is still suffering because of what my ancestors did. They imported the Latin language to Iberia and made the native Basque speakers a minority. So, does Italy owe them anything?
And yes, the school system is racist and needs to be overhauled. I would even be in favor of (gasp!) using tax payer money to help fix it, as long as we got the money from revenue being wasted now (like on the overseas empire, the war on drugs, corporate welfare etc) as opposed to creating new taxes.
As for social programs, they worked once when African Americans ran them themselves. African Americans use to be very self sufficient and created countless non-government self help agencies. http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_m…

Then came the welfare state and regulations, and look what happened.

The biggest and most destructive form of racism is paternalism. It was the colonialist saying they had the "white man's burden" and had to colonize Africa to "help them." Today, it is the liberals who are racist and imperialist. They think they need to send big government in to "help" African Americans. It will and does have the same effect as colonialism did on Africa.

This is one of the very simple questions that made me turn from a "progressive" to a libertarian: Libertarians understand that if government stepped out of the way, the African American community would survive and thrive if it is allowed to be run by the African American community itself. Liberals believe that blacks are incapable of running their own lives and community and need a big, socialist style government, run mostly by wealthy white liberals, to run their lives and their communities for them.

Whose position sounds more racist: the libertarian position or the liberal one?

@80 the US and its ancestor colonies of the crown were around for a long time before the civil war. certainly it may be that the US economy was an economic beneficiary of slavery for a long time prior, and that the expiration or eclipse of those benefits to the North came much sooner than they did for the South. slavery existed for hundreds of years, and only ended amidst the industrial revolution. the economic situations in 1776 (and preceding centuries) and 1861 were quite different

ships had to be built, ships had to be operated, ship and shipping labor and slave purchases had to be financed. mills needed cotton. hick farmers were not doing this independently.

also: the North did not go to war with the South for near-term economic reasons. the South split from the North for political-economic reasons and the North went to war with the South to keep it

Ken I think you're a very good poster but contrarian trolling might tempt u a bit much :)

I read the article by Coates last night. Very good. Erudite and poignant. I was especially moved by the plight of Cliff Ross. I also read the retorts by John McWhorter and Kevin Williamson with the latter being excellent.

First of all, I disagree with this statement:

"From the White House on down, the myth holds that fatherhood is the great antidote to all that ails black people. But Billy Brooks Jr. had a father. Trayvon Martin had a father. Jordan Davis had a father. Adhering to middle-class norms has never shielded black people from plunder."

It is not a myth.Fatherhood means an extraordinary amount to an overwhelming amount of families black, white or any other race. The account of a freedman trying to get his sold wife & children back was most moving.

Two other points I am at odds with. Regarding the reparations paid by Germany to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust or actually, Israel isn't comparable. Genocide & slavery while both horrific are two different crimes with the former far more recent than the latter. A better example would be to use say, Brazil a country that outlawed slavery in 1888 and discuss whether or not slavery reparations were paid.

Mr. Coates makes no case on how to administer reparations. That would be an extraordinary undertaking to say the least. Who gets it? How much etc.?

Finally, I don't believe at all reparations will unify us more as a nation. Matt Yglesias makes a case that reparations are workable and affordable. However, at the end of the article he too concedes:

'Could you really rectify centuries of racial injustice this easily?

Sadly, no. Even if the racial gap in median wealth were eliminated, it would still be the case that there's a substantial racial gap in median income. Lurking behind that gap is a gap in educational attainment. Unless those were rectified, the racial wealth gap would reemerge over time."

So, I am glad I read the article and its responses. A good discussion.

Wow, so much jumping to conclusions! Nobody said the solution must be direct payouts to "victims". What if the whole country - everyone - made reparations to itself?

For example, reward integration: integrated communities (between 25% and 75% black, block per block) get infrastructure money: schools, transportation, broadband, parks. Segregated communities (less than 10% black) get taxed based on property value. Remove the incentive to create division.

This article recalls the current backlash French author Picketty is getting from beneficiaries of the Global Empire of White Privilege ( for daring to suggest the implementation of a wealth tax ). --- http://www.therealnews.com

Beware the Fourth Reichists!!! --- http://www.jimmarrs.com

So, here's a proposal I'll pull out of my ass since so many people seem incapable of imagining how reparations could possibly work. I don't know how this works in other states, but in California, schools are paid a price per student attending class. Instead of just cutting checks to black people, we could just make it so that the price per black student is higher than the price per white student. I have no idea what the actual numbers are, but say the price per student now is $45- just raise it to $60 or something.

Here's another one: I know that often the police themselves are racist in this country, but a lot of the reason why some cities are really dangerous is because they are not wealthy enough to have enough officers on the streets. So maybe we pay reparations by hiring more police officers, especially officers of color. The cops are an obvious place to use straight-up affirmative action, because it helps the police as a whole do their job if they don't seem like a white male group.

Or the government could start an aggressive integrationist housing policy. We could make a kind of mortgage brokerage agency, in which the government buys properties in mostly white neighborhoods and sells them to black families at lower rates than they would get from a regular bank.

Maybe you don't like any of those ideas. That's okay. I think the whole point of this article was to say that black people deserve reparations, and we should be talking about how they could possibly be implemented. Maybe they can't be implemented, but if we don't seriously investigate the possibility of doing so, we can't really know that.

Also, if you want to know how we could fund reparations, the answer is the same way we fund anything in government: taxes. I, personally, would love to see the end of the mortgage interest tax credit, though I know that's unpopular. I'd also be fine with a wealth tax, or a carbon tax, or many other varieties. Or we could cut from somewhere else in the budget (ag subsidies and the military are my favorite targets, but again, others might disagree). It's not like we're a country that can't find money for government projects when we want to.

I do see the arguments that it's not politically feasible, and that is true. But this is where Dan's comparison to Andrew Sullivan's gay marriage article comes in: it will never become politically feasible if no one is talking about it seriously or campaigning for it.

@104:

You said : " I know that often the police themselves are racist in this country, but a lot of the reason why some cities are really dangerous is because they are not wealthy enough to have enough officers on the streets. "

Thats the dumbest thing Ive ever heard in my life

'They are totally racist because we dont pay them enough and becauser there arent enough of them'.

Hate to shock you, but crime has been going down on a yearly rate since the early 90s. Yet law enforcement and corrections hiring has been on a consistent rise.

Nice try!

@100

Are you aware that more slaves where killed in the period of slavery than jewish people during the holocaust?

Also, as horrible as death is, slavery regularly included rape, witnessing of rape, torture, mutilation and destruction of families by selling children (or rape children...Im noticing slavery apologists seem to forget the obvious rape element). There is a reason that African Americans are, genetically, 12-30% white genetically through the male lines.