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Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

#156: Jan. - Mar. 2018 (Non-Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS
Please use this thread to discuss the above referenced chapter.
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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This is a compelling piece. The history of racism in America is very ugly and it is systemic.
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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This piece is likely the best one in the book. It is a question (reparations) which should be taken seriously.
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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I have trouble putting this book down. The author is speaking to my heart. I am not about to go out and call for reparations, but I have always believed in trying to repair the damage I have done, and I think it would do white America a lot of good to take up that task. Sadly, they (we) are unlikely to have the courage.
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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What damage have you done, Mr. Marks?
The discussion of reparations is compelling for two reasons: First, Coates discusses the Holocaust and the reparations that were given to Israel by Germany....my immediate thought upon reading this section was, "Sure but the Holocaust was far worse than the entire history of the treatment of blacks in America." I stand by that reflection, but upon further consideration I had to admit that the treatment of blacks in America is an appalling injustice. The other compelling part of the piece is the discussion of redlining.
The effort in the piece to extend responsibility to every white person (which plays throughout the book with often repeated phrases such as "white privilege" and the like) fall rather flat. I do not feel responsible for what happened to blacks in America. That having been said, it is wrong and we should not simply gloss it as if it were nothing. More than anything else, as Americans we should be interested in cultivating the sense that all Americans are American regardless of race, religion, etc. If some form of reparation would be useful to this end, I would not oppose it.
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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TEKennelly wrote:What damage have you done, Mr. Marks?
I was referring to damage I personally do in my life. I damaged someone else's car once, so I paid for the repair. I spoke out of turn once and really hurt someone, and the best I could do was apologize and try to make it up to them with words of praise. When I cause harm, I think it is not only right to make reparations but good for me as well.
TEKennelly wrote:upon further consideration I had to admit that the treatment of blacks in America is an appalling injustice. The other compelling part of the piece is the discussion of redlining.
If there were no ongoing injustice, I think it might be wisest to settle for sweeping the problem under the rug. After all, we don't contemplate giving back their land to Native Americans, and even the kinds of small reparations made by Canada and Australia can hardly make up for the massive injustice done to their original peoples. If we ever get to the point where we are honestly trying to undo some of the damage, I am sure we can find more appropriate measures than reverting wide areas to hunter-gatherer mode.

It was a different age, an age when almost all leaders thought about things about the way Trump does. Violence was a necessity. Injustice was the main mode of gaining wealth and power. But that way of looking at things dies hard. To pound a stake through its heart, reparations are worth considering.
TEKennelly wrote:The effort in the piece to extend responsibility to every white person (which plays throughout the book with often repeated phrases such as "white privilege" and the like) fall rather flat.
At some point you have to recognize that a system designed to benefit your group, at somebody else's expense, implicates you in the system. I don't think Coates tries to extend responsibility to every white person (in places he recognizes the efforts of some white people to overcome racism, for example). White privilege is another subject, on which in a moment. But he certainly sees, with eyes that white people can afford not to, that the beneficiaries of "affirmative action for whites" over centuries have every incentive not to question the system or change it. Nor to accept others questioning it or changing it. Nor to accept the rage of those despoiled.

White privilege is the privileged position of white people in that they can pretend that race is not a factor. When white is "normal" and "we" are white, then surely whiteness conveys no benefit, right? Except it did, and it does. Race is invisible when white people look at other white people in everyday life. Race is not invisible when white people look at people of different skin color. How many people honestly don't notice the race of a black or Latino sports star or movie star? Why does Ben Carson or Clarence Thomas get any recognition or status at all?
TEKennelly wrote:I do not feel responsible for what happened to blacks in America.
Nor do I.
TEKennelly wrote:That having been said, it is wrong and we should not simply gloss it as if it were nothing.
More than anything else, as Americans we should be interested in cultivating the sense that all Americans are American regardless of race, religion, etc. If some form of reparation would be useful to this end, I would not oppose it.
I like the way Lindsey Graham put it this week, that America is about an ideal (of democracy, and so, of opportunity and mutual acceptance) not about a race. The challenge is to make that the truth, not just an aspirational statement.
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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I'm a minority and an immigrant so I'm going to use my get out of jail free card when it comes to reparations.
"I have a great relationship with the blacks."
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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Litwitlou wrote:I'm a minority and an immigrant so I'm going to use my get out of jail free card when it comes to reparations.
:lol:
Okay by me. I might try my "no ancestors from the South" status, but I doubt if that would get me much of a tax break.
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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Just ran into an interesting discussion on restorative justice that might be relevant here. The idea that has emerged in restorative justice practice is to give the victim the space to explain the harm that was done to them, and to say what justice might help them to put themselves back together.

I can't help but think such listening would make a big difference even if not a penny of reparations was ever paid.
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Re: Ch. 6: NOTES FROM THE SIXTH YEAR - THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

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Re-reading the essay, I noticed something I missed the first time through. Coates' argument draws on a point Zinn made (and probably wasn't the first). One reason slavery was foundational to America was its importance to the American economy. Hard to deny that, but on the other hand, every economy rests on many pillars, and white America would have been less prosperous but still pretty well off without the Southern plantation economy. So that point keeps leaving me nettled. But the point I just noticed was this: America's working class did not need to be violently repressed in the way Europe's did.

Zinn and Coates both express it as American liberty and democracy being built on slavery. The logic is that white workers could be given the vote without fear that they would overthrow a domination system, because the real peonage labor, the people whose oppression was very clear, were African-American slaves.

I think there is something to that, actually. Especially in the South, where needing to hold down a huge lot of white peasants (plantation agriculture is pretty much always a system of exploitation) would have created a very different dynamic between lords and serfs, the ability to give votes to white masses (but not always, as Coates notes, majorities) may really have rested on the system of slavery.
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