tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post6399635650949034851..comments2024-03-28T22:15:17.067-05:00Comments on Every goddamn day: 03/29/24: What will become of the divided city?Neil Steinberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468057838260476480noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-25314756980277424532017-05-27T13:32:59.972-05:002017-05-27T13:32:59.972-05:00Having a never ending victim mentality, like Nativ...Having a never ending victim mentality, like Native Americans, or some, isn't good either.Privatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10757585399827295128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-60564892574042701082017-05-27T13:30:54.312-05:002017-05-27T13:30:54.312-05:00And don't forget self responsibility too, Jake...And don't forget self responsibility too, Jake.Privatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10757585399827295128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-9576867141381362682017-05-27T07:49:51.016-05:002017-05-27T07:49:51.016-05:00I'm glad you received an assignment about the ...I'm glad you received an assignment about the cops crime. As newspapers have to tighten up, there will always be a need for investigative reporting and not so much for artsy or human interest/whimsical items. Get used to it if it saves your job or gets you a job at another paper. You have a knack for the investigative reporting as well. Privatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10757585399827295128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-79919912435542744652014-05-28T15:09:11.794-05:002014-05-28T15:09:11.794-05:00It’s a good article, definitely worth a read (for ...It’s a good article, definitely worth a read (for the discussion of housing discrimination in Chicago alone), but I came away still fairly dismissive of the reparations concept.<br /><br />The article doesn’t satisfyingly confront the main, common-sense objection, the elephant in the room, which is that it’s redolent of collective punishment and collective compensation, concepts usually alien to our sense of fairness, especially when there has been a large time-lapse that includes lots of generational turnover. Too many people today who would be responsible for paying for the reparations (including, I guess, weirdly, recipients themselves) would bear no responsibility whatsoever for the historical forces at work, nor even would their ancestors. Likewise, too many people today who would receive the reparations would not plausibly have such compensation coming. As somebody asked, do Obama’s daughters (descended from slaves on their mother’s side) have a good claim for a reparations payment? At least with Germany, the crimes were fresh – reparations were made to Israel, along with other nations, in the immediate aftermath of the war, when both the malefactors and the victims were still living, unless they had just been killed – and the recipients were other nations. I’m not aware of a precedent for this sort of compensation scheme, where we would address crimes committed long ago, or *very* long ago, when their effects are diffuse and indefinite.<br /><br />I’ve heard the story about the football game where the white team cheats until the last minute and then agrees to play fair. This idea is usually invoked to defend affirmative action, and it could just as well be used to defend reparations. But that story elides the fact that the players are different people. It’s not one game. It also argues too much, suggesting that the black team should be permitted to cheat just as badly and for just as long as the white team had done. Besides, the emphasis on teams, as though we are feuding clans with ancient grievances as fresh today as they were hundreds of years ago, is politically toxic, for good reason. It condescendingly classes blacks as a victim caste and everyone else as a perpetrator caste. We’re not supposed to have castes in this country.<br /><br />I agree that the ideal where everyone has a pretty equal shot and is rewarded simply and fairly for their talent and exertion is, in some large proportion, a fantasy, perhaps nowhere more than in depressed black urban centers. So, we should address that problem directly. We should bring fresh focus and money to the renewal of our mostly-black inner-cities. (Detroit is starting to work on it, now that it’s bankrupt. We should do it before then!) We should bring fresh focus and money to our safety net. Switzerland is considering a minimum income. The UK has a “universal credit,” an idea even Paul Ryan approved of in the abstract. When it comes to our urban schools, I would like to see a focus on social work, “soft skills,” and remedial tutoring, as opposed to the privatization fad and testing mania that dominates discussions of education reform.<br /><br />We could justify such policies as a nation’s duty to a black underclass it created. But we wouldn’t need that justification. We should do them anyway.JakeHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-9030657705065914262014-05-27T20:35:16.788-05:002014-05-27T20:35:16.788-05:00Neil you might also want to view the Moyers' i...Neil you might also want to view the Moyers' interview of Ta-Nehisi CoatesNormanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11281969033777645342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-78497257431595903492014-05-27T10:28:20.478-05:002014-05-27T10:28:20.478-05:00Here is just one of the many jaw-dropping stories ...Here is just one of the many jaw-dropping stories from The Case for Reparations: <br /><br />"In 1951, thousands of whites in Cicero, 20 minutes or so west of downtown Chicago, attacked an apartment building that housed a single black family, throwing bricks and firebombs through the windows and setting the apartment on fire. A Cook County grand jury declined to charge the rioters—and instead indicted the family’s NAACP attorney, the apartment’s white owner, and the owner’s attorney and rental agent, charging them with conspiring to lower property values."<br /><br />The article is a good case for Conyers' bill - to at least study the concept of reparations - and here's hoping it makes a difference.Hedyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00940638535923331779noreply@blogger.com