- For those of us interested in how the left prioritizes its various radicalisms, Sanders’s answer is illuminating. The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as “divisive” (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist. Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is “nil,” a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator’s own platform. The chances of a President Sanders coaxing a Republican Congress to pass a $1 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill are also nil. Considering Sanders’s proposal for single-payer health-care, Paul Krugman asks, “Is there any realistic prospect that a drastic overhaul could be enacted any time soon—say, in the next eight years? No.”
"But raising the minimum wage doesn’t really address the fact that black men without criminal records have about the same shot at low-wage work as white men with them; nor can making college free address the wage gap between black and white graduates. Housing discrimination, historical and present, may well be the fulcrum of white supremacy. " Reparations will solve these problems? What does the author mean by "reparations", exactly?
The author means "I want to get money". You don't fix the economic and social issues of something like slavery by handing a generation, or a few generations, some amount of money. You get an entire group hated by the rest of the public because they are having money taken away from them and handed to that group.
I didn't read that as saying reparations will solve these problems, but as a broader indictment of Bernie's (sometimes implied) assertion that economic justice will lead to racial justice. But that assertion is the same one underlying his rejection of reparations, so reparations become a useful starting point for the conversation. As for what he means by reparations, I would look to his previous article The Case for Reparations. (I'd link but I'm on mobile.)
Alright, I've read the case for reparations and I still don't understand his practical plan. His example of Germany giving money to the Israeli state requires two governing bodies and an exchange of funds. What he's proposing would require a black state in america to determine, which would require huge social changes to organize. I think his best argument comes in the middle of the article. He says we haven't even studied how reparations would affect a community, so that's probably where we should start. The fact that he then goes on to say reparations is a great idea based on that one example seems a little off to me. The idea of reparations should be studied and we should find ways to form and finance reparation coalitions before saying this is the absolutely perfect solution.
John Conyers, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, has introduced legislation to study the effect of reparations every year (or most years, my memory is hazy on this) since he's been in Congress (50 years!). It has never once come up for a committee vote, I believe, let alone a floor vote.He says we haven't even studied how reparations would affect a community, so that's probably where we should start.
I believe that he doesn't give a specific figure. He just made the argument for reparations--as to what those reparations should be, he refers to a bill that a congressman has been introducing every year since 1989 that would fund a formal study into slavery's effects.
galen, Here is the piece you reference: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
So, if someone is mixed race, how much do they get? Half? A quarter? Do only 'Pure' blacks get reparations? Who decides how 'black' someone is? Addendum* What if someone like Rachel Dolezal identifies as black? Also, some basic math. There are roughly 45 million Black people in the United States. If we were to give all of them a one time payment of 1.5 million dollars (which some people believe is about right) the total cost would be in the ballpark of 67.5 trillion dollars. To put that in perspective, the Gross World Product of 2014 was approximately 107.5 trillion. These are absurdist estimates, but I want to illustrate how easy it is for us to lose track of scale in this kind of discussion.
There has been an update on this discussion in that Michael Render, who has been promoting Bernie's campaign, spoke with Coates about Bernie and reparations. My favorite bit of commentary from Render is: The fact that blacks have to even justify the case for reparations is shameful. The fact that only 1 candidate is being called to task is Bullshit. Especially when that candidate is the only one with policy proposal that directly effects the black community if elected