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March 26, 2002
3:35 PM Subscribe

Reparations Sought From U.S. Firms for Slavery.Big U.S. companies were named in a lawsuit on Tuesday filed on behalf of black Americans descended from slaves, the first-ever class action seeking reparations from firms for profiting from slavery. Is this really sensible?
posted by sixdifferentways (96 comments total)

Portugal started it all, can't we just give them Miguel?
posted by machaus at 3:59 PM on March 26, 2002

It may be the first such case regarding American slavery, but weren't relatives of those forced to work in Nazi slave-labor camps given a (rather meagre) payout in the past decade? I am not certain but I seem to remember that the German government and corporations quietly paid up.
posted by cell divide at 4:04 PM on March 26, 2002

Those Nazi payouts were to living victims or their immediate descendents, were they not? Big difference.
posted by aaron at 4:14 PM on March 26, 2002

Sort of a double post
posted by owillis at 4:18 PM on March 26, 2002

This, to me, is crazy... if the ancestors of everyone who was ever tortured, beaten, enslaved, killed, defeated, etc. were to sue the ancestors of those who commited the preceeding offenses then we're all screwed.

Christians would be able to sue the descendants of the Romans from all that pesky "throwing to the lions", Catholics would be sued by virutally everyone in regards to the Inquisition, any descendant of a victor in a war would be responsible for the deaths that occured in said war, and the list goes on and on.

Slavery was, and is, a terrible thing and I'm not trying to lessen the tragedy of it all, but what's done is done. That was in the past, and the people who are running those companies did not make the decisions that their ancestors (and/or former employees) did, nor should they be culpable for the deeds of others hundreds of years ago.
posted by crankydoodle at 4:25 PM on March 26, 2002

Great! So when does the Catholic Church have to pay up for intimidating my family into leaving Europe due to religious persecution?
posted by RevGreg at 4:27 PM on March 26, 2002

Is this really sensible?

No.
posted by SpecialK at 4:34 PM on March 26, 2002

I suppose it also has to be asked why non-blacks who were subjected to the same treatment are not included in this lawsuit? If the issue is that the reparations are to be paid by companies who profited from slavery then why is being black even an issue? In the article they specifically mention railroads as a huge benefactor of slave labor and the first image into my mind was the huge number of Chinese laborers used by the railroads.
posted by RevGreg at 4:35 PM on March 26, 2002

some info: not just a few big and old firms will be named but also some elite private collages (Yale, Harvard etc) becaue they got endowmnet money from walthy folks who had at one time owned slaves. But the other side of the coin: the lawyers for the reprations case will have to get the law set aside regarding statute of limitations, since that has well run out. The courts are not likely to start making exceptions for if they do they might as well get rid of limitations.
posted by Postroad at 4:43 PM on March 26, 2002

The Germans made reparations fairly quickly...albeit small ones. The Japanese on the other hand....

Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui, Nippon Steel Corp., Nippon Sharyo Ltd., Japan Energy Corp., Ishihara Sangyo Kaisha Ltd. and others were sued by American soldiers used as slave labor. The case was dismissed. Nor were reparations made for the Bataan Death March.

Some of the people who experienced those are still alive and barely surviving on the pittance we give old soldiers who won a war for us...

As to people who claim to deserve money because great-grandma was a slave, they need to get over it. The Irish and the Chinese weren't treated much better. There were white slaves, ya know. The more focus people give reparations, the less focus they give to us all being Americans. Not White, not Black, not Purple, but Americans. One people...with liberty and Justice for all.

(And I'd like to mention here; Native Americans....if any race of people deserve reparations from Americans...it's the Indians. Until they aren't living in refugee camps in the worst land in the country...I think everyone else should just get off the reparation wheel. )
posted by dejah420 at 4:44 PM on March 26, 2002

You know what the worst part of this is?

The complaint did not contain a monetary damage figure, but did estimate the current value of slaves' unpaid labor as $1.4 trillion.

Can a court in good conscience actually give the plaintiffs (however many of them there are) a settlement that big?
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 4:46 PM on March 26, 2002

Looters.
posted by John Galt at 5:09 PM on March 26, 2002

The complaint did not contain a monetary damage figure, but did estimate the current value of slaves' unpaid labor as $1.4 trillion.
Can a court in good conscience actually give the plaintiffs (however many of them there are) a settlement that big?
I am kinda' rusty on my law knowledge, but I thought that for the most part, those initial demands for class-action suits are never paid out, even if the plaintiff wins. I always heard it was a game of demand the most possible money, with knowledge that you'll never get that amount, but the lower initial amount you demand, the lower you'll get in the end after all is said and done.
Besides that, i am also with the masses for once that this is horid idea and i'm moving to a mission in Mexico or Switzerland if this stands up in court or the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act is passed.
posted by jmd82 at 5:16 PM on March 26, 2002

I demand reparations for the fact that the village of my ancestors was burned to the ground around 1600AD by a "christian" army. Aside from the general trauma of the attack and subsequent pillaging, my ancestors were forced off their land.

...were it not for this event, I am quite sure that I would now be a despotic monarch, revelling in the agonies of my subjects. I therefore demand $100 from every human being on Earth who is now, or has ever been, "christian".

Surely $100 is a small price to pay for the knowledge that you've Done The Right Thing. Anyone, of any race, that fails to pay me will immediately be equated with Hitler, and taunted until my throat is sore.

Thank you for your guilt. I can assure you I'll be buying many useful items with it.
posted by aramaic at 5:24 PM on March 26, 2002

Well, slavery really happened long enough ago that I don't think you can have reperations for it... The people directly affected are long gone. On the other hand, I think the people trying to sue japanese companies ought to get their money. The japanese economy is fine now, and wouldn't be hurt (the idea with the treaty was to keep japan from falling into a permenant debt like post wwi germany by grabbing a lot of reperations).
posted by delmoi at 5:24 PM on March 26, 2002

A corporation is legally an individual. A corporation has all the same laws afforded to private individuals and then some it's the genius of the capitalist system. A corporation lives a lot longer then a person so it can legally be held accountable for crimes that are very old.

While I agree with everyone this is a sham, it is how the system works and was designed.. maybe we need to re-write some laws about statue of limitations on corporations but then how does one go after polluters 100 years from now who left behind radiation for example.
posted by stbalbach at 5:25 PM on March 26, 2002

What I find interesting is the concept of reparations for slavery. Not in the traditional sense of "Well it was 5 generations removed so we shouldn't pay" kind of thing but the fact that so few people actually 'get' the concept of slavery as it applies to non-US history. Slavery has existed since almost as early as man. Chineese took other Chineese as slaves, Europeans had European slaves, the Jews were slaves in Egypt, and the slave trade in Africa continues even today with people being purchased and sold. In fact, contrary to Roots, white men did not go and hunt down Africans to bring back. They purchased them from other Africans.

Now the point I'm getting at is that while slavery was a cruel and unthinkable condition, it was a way of life for every country, every people, for thousands and thousands of years. We didn't invent it and we were far from the last to abandon it. Reparations makes as much sense as saying that we should also backpay all the feudal serfs who did not make an acceptiable minimum wage.
posted by billman at 5:38 PM on March 26, 2002

i think those of you that are comparing this to events in ancient history are being a little unfair. After all, the effects of slavery are still clearly visible in this country. There are still huge socio-economic disparities between whites and black that dwarf those of other racial minorities. If we admit that African-americans are still feeling the effects of slavery in a significant way 100 years later, why are reparations so crazy?

Rather than thinking of it as a way of assigning guilt or punishing, think of it as a form of redistribution. If slaves had been paid for their work 100 years ago, the distribution of wealth today would be profoundly different. Fleet would have less money and the decedents of slaves would have more.

Having said all that, I agree with the companies that the courts are not the appropriate venue to deal with this question, as it is essentially political in nature. But I'd like to see Congress seriously take it up someday.
posted by boltman at 5:45 PM on March 26, 2002

sorry, that's 150 years. I got 100 in my head from the earlier post.
posted by boltman at 5:46 PM on March 26, 2002

boltman: Do you not think that the last 3000 - 4000 years that Jews have been chased out of various countries, had their entire fortunes taken from them, been subject to slavery, have not had any socio-economic impact on them? The hatred and killing of Jews didn't begin with Hitler. There were Jewish ghettos long before Hitler was born. They wandered from one country to the next where they would settle down, become successful, and then would be driven out and their wealth taken. Has that not had socio-economic impacts on them. Just imagine where they would be. The entire world should pay then kazillions of stolen wealth.

Slavery pre-US is not ancient history. It's simply the history we choose to ignore because it doesn't fit into our world view.
posted by billman at 5:54 PM on March 26, 2002

The japanese economy is fine now

Say what?
posted by McBain at 5:57 PM on March 26, 2002

I think this law suit was filed in Brooklyn, down the hill. Yeah. I guess this still constitutes clever PR.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:02 PM on March 26, 2002

I am against reparations mostly because we already have them in a sense: Affirmative Action.

We should continue to have programs that provide extra opportunities to blacks, because while slavery ended 150 years ago, the culture of blacks not being recognized as full citizens is MUCH MUCH more recent. It is hard for a culture to get over attitudes of hoeplessness, as much as I believe in personal responsibility, people are so very influenced by culture that I feel fine spending tax dolloars to change things.
posted by McBain at 6:02 PM on March 26, 2002

One of biggest impediments to this lawsuit getting past a motion for summary judgment would be the statute of limitations argument. Welfare, healthcare, education, and exclusionary land practices (pdf) are all subjects that can be pointed at that might indicate that the harm of slavery still persists.

Another document that I came across that discusses this subject in the context of other legal actions for reparations, is The Holocaust Restitution Movement in Comparative Perspective It points out that the other difficulty in such a lawsuit would be the standing to bring such a suit:

More difficult is finding the proper class of aggrieved claimants. In both the Holocaust restitution and Japanese slave labor lawsuits, the plaintiffs were the actual slaves or their immediate heirs. (In the Japanese-American internment movement, the claimants also were individuals who were actually interned by the U.S. government during the war). No former American slaves are alive today to serve as plaintiffs

Can standing be assumed by those who suffer from an institutionalization of discrimination, just as a statute of limitations is extended by the existence of ongoing harm?

I don't know if a court is the right forum to address the grievances that are being claimed. The targets of the suits aren't governmental bodies that administrate welfare or healthcare, or education. But they are industries that benefitted from slavery. It will be interesting to watch.
posted by bragadocchio at 6:29 PM on March 26, 2002

There are still huge socio-economic disparities between whites and black that dwarf those of other racial minorities.

I’m not sure about that, and I’m less sure of the conclusions you seem to draw from it. Yes, Black households tend to have lower income than other races. They are 66% of white houses, but they’re pretty close to Hispanic households, so I don’t know you can make the leap to say obviously the impact of slavery.

As of 9/25/01

Median Household Income in US $42,148
Median Household Income Asian and Pacific Islander $55,521
Median Household Income White Non-Hispanic $45,904
Median Household Income in Hispanic Households $33,447
Median Household income in Black Households $30,439

source

An interesting experiment for the home viewer would be to graph those income distributions onto educational statistics by race. Now how much of that educational distribution is the effect of cultural emphasis and what are the causes of that. This isn't to discount the effects of institutionalized racism. There are plenty of idiots in the world, but the existence of a thing does not necessarily indicate causality.
posted by willnot at 6:30 PM on March 26, 2002

willnot: first of all, the US census bureau doesn't agree with your (or should I say Duyba's) numbers. In addition, one should keep in mind that the Hispanic population contains many recent immigrants, which lowers their median income as a group. Poverty among recent immigrants is still troubling, but the US does not bear the same responsibility for it as poverty resulting from slavery.

second, median household income is not the only measure of a group's prosperity.

how about incarceration rates:
9.7% of black non-Hispanic males age 25 to 29 were in prison in 2000,
2.9% of Hispanic males
1.1% of white males in the same age group.

Or how about health indicators like infant mortality

White: 7.2 per 1,000 live births
Hispanic: 5.5 to 7.9
Black: 13.7

I didn't include statistics about Native Americans for obvious reasons. (although you're welcome to bring them up if you want)
posted by boltman at 7:42 PM on March 26, 2002

I think the reparations for slavery is a good concept, and there are many more similar ideas I think ought to be pursued. For example, the loosened immigration policies in the last 10 years has cost many American citizens their lives b/c immigrants being available for low end jobs means that those jobs no longer offer medical benefits. Therefore many American citizens have died of cancer etc due to the AMerican politicians who sold out America in order to get cheap labor. Well, we ought to seek reparations for being sold out by our politicians.

Regarding reparations for descendants of African slaves, that is OK, but I want payment from those same descendants of African slaves because of the net benefit to them bestowed upon them by MY ancestors as compared to those of their fellow Africans who were left in Africa. Their lives are enriched due to their ancestors' enslavement. My ancestors are responsible for their good fortune, as so I want some of that differential.
posted by username at 7:56 PM on March 26, 2002

The white house page gives the US Census Bureau as its source for the numbers, so I would be surprised to find that the US Census Bureau doesn't agree with itself. Average (or mean) is different from median, and since it's less sensitive to extremes it's probably more relevant as a measure of the general population. Still, the relative distribution is roughly the same, so I'm not sure how you're link substantially supports your assertion more than the numbers I quoted.

How did slavery in the past lead to higher incarceration rates today? High incarceration rates certainly might contribute to lower median income since most of those are males leading to higher single mother homes, but I'm not sure how to make the connection from slavery to incarceration to single mother households to economic disadvantage thus slavery contributes to continuing economic disadvantage.
posted by willnot at 8:08 PM on March 26, 2002

I meant median is less sensitive than mean. Must. Check. Grammer.
posted by willnot at 8:13 PM on March 26, 2002

my point with the incarceration and infant mortality data was that median (or mean) income is not the only (or even an especially good) way to measure the overall well-being of a group within society. Measures like infact mortality and incarceration show us what is happening at the margins in a way that household income can't.

So we have these extreme disparities in things like crime rates and health that are unique to one particular racial group. How do we explain it? You can blame it on institutional racism, but that's really just begging the question. Where does institutional racism come from? Why is it so much more severe towards blacks than other minorities (at least in these categories we've identified)?

It's hard to find a non-racist explaination that doesn't in some way lead back to slavery as the ultimate problem. The fact that slavery was not only condoned but actually built into the Constitution seems to make the US at least a little bit culpable, don't you think?

one last point. slavery really wasn't that long ago. there are probably people alive today whose grandparents were slaves.
posted by boltman at 9:02 PM on March 26, 2002

I don't pretend to understand infant mortality causes, but a quick google search turns up:

http://www.state.nj.us/health/bibs/education/1unsolved.html

Recently, many studies have shown that bacterial vaginosis approximately doubles the risk of spontaneous preterm delivery. Furthermore, this disease is more common in some populations than in others. For example, data from the Vaginal Infections in Prematurity Study have shown that pregnant black women had nearly three times as much bacterial vaginosis as did pregnant white women. Meis et al. have also confirmed that the rate of bacterial vaginosis in black women is at least double the rate in white women

They also suggest that stress may be a factor and that institutional racism may be a leading contributor of stress. I'm not going to discount that, but it sounds like a position in search of validation to me.
posted by willnot at 9:42 PM on March 26, 2002

Median Household Income in US $42,148
Median Household Income Asian and Pacific Islander $55,521
Median Household Income White Non-Hispanic $45,904
Median Household Income in Hispanic Households $33,447
Median Household income in Black Households $30,439

If you want to hear some really scary statistics, I would suggest suggest the book Ethnic America by Thomas Sowell, former Black Panther and now conservative Republican and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His thesis, is that every ethnic group that has come to this country (Irish, Jew, Italian, Chineese, Japanese, German, Latin American, etc.) has gone through a similar pattern of assimilation usually differing only in skills brought over with them and the opportunities available to them once in the US (for instance, Jews had a cultural respect for education so flocked to careers in medicine, law, etc. while Germans were mostly farmers and thus took up farming in the US). So for instance, the lower household income in Hispanic families is partially due to the fact that it wasn't until relatively recently that Mexican families came to the US and stayed. Most retired back to Mexico and a new generation of uneducated, unassimilated Hispanics would arrive. Once that pattern changed, and there was a significant second and third generation of Hispanics in the US their per household income went from below that of blacks to on par with blacks and now slightly higher than blacks.

One of the more interesting trends is that blacks who migrate to the US from Caribbean nations, who were also subject to slavery in their respective "homelands", outperform blacks born in the US. But how can that be if racism and slavery account for the low per household incomes? Interesting question, but it's the wrong question because racism and slavery only play a minor role in the current per household income of blacks in the US. The difference might be better explained by facts like 50% of blacks still live in the South which has, on average, the lowest household incomes in the nation regardless of race. For instance blacks in NY earn 50% more than blacks in the South and only 1/3 of whites live in the South.

Another interesting trend that perhaps offers explination is the fact that blacks graduating college graduate with degrees in "soft" sciences in a higher percentage than other groups. Since soft sciences include Social Sciences which traditionally offer less opportunities for high paying jobs after graduation, it seems logical to assume that even if they earn the same as whites with similar educations, their higher percentage representation in areas that typically do not pay as well as other areas, influences per household income numbers. I think this "trend" has been demonstrated with both blacks as well as with white women in the high-tech sector. For many years there has been a push to encourage more blacks and women to become computer scientists. Despite intensive efforts on the parts of women and black advocacy groups and the schools themselves, they have not greatly impacted the number of women or blacks who declare a computer science major leading some to conclude that racism and sexism may not be the culprit behind the lack of women and black computer scientists.

Lastly, there are some who speculate that the civil rights movement in the post Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. era has brought with it a significant decline in the assimilation of blacks into society and the normalization of earnings, etc. While that may seem counter-intuitive, one must consider the change in face of the post King civil rights goals. Dr. King demanded equal opportunity. The militant black uprisings demanded equal results. The emphasis shifted from removing barriers to mandating results. Quotas, welfare, and all of the social programs that followed turned the goal from teaching a man to fish to just giving him fish as a way to make up for our past sins. And the more we gave, the more was demanded. People like Jessie Jackson rake in millions of dollars a year extorting money from companies with the threat of calling them racist and find no irony that the suit he's wearing costs more than the monthly wage of the person he's claiming to speak for. Now we have a cry for $1.4 trillion dollars in reparations which I probably wouldn't have as much trouble with if the money was going to be used to "teach the man to fish" but we know that it won't. If the demand was for $1.4 trillion in educational assistance over the next 20 years I might consider it a sincere request, but it's not. No, those who demand reparations want a check. A check that will be spent in one or two generations and we will be staring the same problem in the face 50 years from now when the money is gone. But, that's 50 years of feeling good about yourself and what the hell, it's just other people's money, right?
posted by billman at 9:55 PM on March 26, 2002

About the above, I will point out that we are discussing corporate reparations, not federal reparations. And yes, thank you, boltman, many of these historical comparisons made above seem illogical and dismissive to me, as do most of the conservative objections to reparations. Named in the suit are companies that are still in existence, and early on in their corporate lives they made a great deal of money off the slave trade. This isn't some vague resentment, this is a direct look back into the accounts of some of today's largest businesses.

And what's all this "focussing on the past brings us farther apart" business? Shut up and move on? As far as I'm concerned, Americans telling Americans that we're all the same is what drives us apart.

In my family, like lots of other poor whites, I was taught to always remember where we came from and the effects corporations (like the coalmining companies) had on our lives. Why shouldn't black people address the even more direct operations of politics and business on their family's lives as a guide to their personal ethics as well?

Here's some discussion on the case for reparations.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 10:15 PM on March 26, 2002

billman: Actually, the "50 percent of blacks live in the South" bit is fairly recent. More blacks had lived elsewhere from the Great Migration on (post-World War II, primarily) until the Census showed a change in 2000. Blacks in the South are not migrating much to poor areas such as the Mississippi Delta (which is losing population, still), though. They favor more "New South" places like Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, Dallas, Jackson, Miss., etc., which have wages comparable to any decent place in the U.S. and low costs of living and spacious, affordable housing besides. The 55 percent figure also includes South Florida, which really isn't southern - as in "southern" southern.
posted by raysmj at 10:35 PM on March 26, 2002

Ahhhh . . . ok, so after such a verbose post, I have some links that some of those who favor reparations might find of some value and for those on the fence, they are well worth the read.

Victimizing Blacks

The reparations fraud

The reparations fraud: II

Blacks and bootstraps

Reparations for slavery?
posted by billman at 10:40 PM on March 26, 2002

One of the more interesting trends is that blacks who migrate to the US from Caribbean nations, who were also subject to slavery in their respective "homelands", outperform blacks born in the US. But how can that be if racism and slavery account for the low per household incomes?

Without pretending to have any knowledge of this particualrly case, I would suggest that differences in the level of wealth inequality within Carribean nations and wealth inequality in within the US have a lot to do with any differences in performance. High levels of wealth inequality in a society creates all sorts of pathologies among the disadvantaged groups that are not found in in poorer but more egalitarian societies.

Even if I'm totally wrong about this, the fact that formerly enslaved groups in different countries have different levels of economic success doesn't really prove anything except that slavery does not have perfectly uniform effects on all countries.
posted by boltman at 10:49 PM on March 26, 2002

first off, billman, thank you for one of the more engaging and thoughtful posts of the thread. sowell has always intrigued me, and now i've finally gotten round to wishlisting a bunch of his stuff for my amazon account (it's the only way i remember what i should buy next). that said, you're comment that "we know (reparitions) won't" go to teaching a man to fish is a bit saddening. who are "we" to presuppose the intent of the legal team? perhaps they will have the foresight to insist upon the educational aid plan you described.

i've got a few opinions about reparations. i honestly thing they are a REALLY bad idea, if only for the damage they'll do to race relations... but i've got an odd perspective on them in genereal. check it out:

my father's family is portugese... from the azores, actually. my ancestors rigged and outfitted ships on their way to the colonies. they were crew, as well. i have no idea if they were involved in the slave trade, but the odds... well the odds are pretty good that they were. you could counter this with my mother's side, dirt poor irish who immigrated during the famine, and worked on the railroads. anyone else have a "no blacks, no dogs, no irish" sign hung in their den like my grandfather did?

so. should the reparitions arguement ever come full circle, and stop being about race relations, am i gonna wind up paying for the slave trade while being reimbursed for my family's noble efforts to develop america's infrastructure?
posted by gangcandy at 11:25 PM on March 26, 2002

boltman: The case cited was West Indians (blacks in Caribbean nations like Jamaica, the Bahamas, etc.) after migrating to the US both pre and post Civil War.

I apologize if you were implying that but I was unable to tell from your post and just wanted to clairfy.

The bottom line though is, why would a black man (or woman) from the Bahamas, recently released from slavery, perform, economically, better than a black man released from slavery from the South? A racist sees only a black man, right?
posted by billman at 11:27 PM on March 26, 2002

raysmj: Actually I believe your numbers may be incorrect because the book I got the numbers from was published in 1983 and I believe is referring to the 1980 census. So that would at least indicate a trend that has been in place for 20+ years.

If you have numbers or sources, would love to see them. I actually mean that in a sincere manner as I take great interest in this subject and if you have information that is different than mine, I would welcome the opportunity to educate myself further.
posted by billman at 11:31 PM on March 26, 2002

i read the article, rj reynolds, and i'm wondering about the black politicians, psychologists, authors, attorneys, etc. that are quoted in the article. are they anomalies? if their theory holds water, how do they explain how they became wealthy and powerful as the descendants of slaves? why them and not others? can they really blame all of the problems that black america faces on "poor self esteem" as a result of slavery? i'm sorry, i just don't get it.

i worked in television for years and at every place i worked at, the management actively recruited minorities for all positions - not just the on-air talent. in fact, they were desperate to fill positions with minorities. training was offered, health insurance, good starting salaries, security and opportunities for advancement. we were rarely able to get a black person to even come by for an interview and if they did, we hired them and then they rarely stayed more than a few months. it was always a mystery to me. i never saw any evidence of inequal treatment or racism on the job. on the rare occasion that someone stayed more than a few months, i can't remember them ever taking advantage of advancement opportunities when other people were climbing over each other for the smallest promotion. i would mention that a position was available, offer to teach a new skill and they would politely decline and say no.

i don't want to make generalizations about a culture at large, this is just my experience. it happened on numerous occasions, this wasn't an isolated incident. this has just always baffled me.

i'm not saying that there's not a validity to the argument that slavery has effected the following generations of blacks. perhaps what i was seeing was refusal to compete or take risks due to past experiences. i don't have the answer to that.

i agree with billman that restitution would be more effective in the form of education, job training, housing, voter education, healthcare etc. and it should be called restitution, not assistance. i think the word "assistance" has negative connotations whereas "restitution" could be empowering. i don't think just handing out "no strings" settlement checks would do any good.
posted by centrs at 11:37 PM on March 26, 2002

gangcandy: Well, I certainly appreciate your kind words (so unusual for MeFi lately :-)

You're absolutely correct, I do not know the intent of the legal team. But, I can speculate. I can speculate based on the words and the past actions of those supporting reprarations and those who filed suit. Deadria Farmer-Paellmann who has brought the suit, sadly, based on my research into her past public comments/actions, leads me to believe she is not actually interested in anything other than her 15 minutes of fame. She has tried to get Aetna to pay up but they issued an apology and refused to pay. Her case and many of the companies they are going after are companies that insured the boats or the "cargo" (i.e. the slaves) or who those who made loans to slave traders so they could finance the trips. In other words, go after the deepest pockets available and hope they settle to get you off their back. I'm sorry, but outside of a courtroom they call that extortion.

Go ahead put her name into Google and read some of the stories that come up. Then read some of the Sowell links I've posted and ask yourself which camp she falls into.
posted by billman at 11:53 PM on March 26, 2002

RJ Reynolds: Actually I see some incongruency in your position based on your links. The case for reparations as stated in your links is government did this, government did that, government didn't live up to this promise, etc, etc. So let's sue some corporations that were engaging in a business which was perfectly legal at the time they were engaged in it!

I can completely respect your emotions on this but the legal theory is weak at best, and the motives of those filing the suit are . . . well, let's just say I'm not convinced that the case isn't being brought more to bolster their standing in the black community as it is because they actually feel that what these companies did was wrong or that the people who conducted the business at the time knew it was wrong.
posted by billman at 12:15 AM on March 27, 2002

billman, here's what came out of those articles linked by google:

in her original case against Aetna, which you mentioned, "Farmer-Paellmann asked Aetna to make restitution by establishing a multimillion-dollar trust for minority education and businesses" (link).

... this is also backed up by her negotiations with Aetna, which prior to their refusal to offer anything beyond a policy, had them mulling "increasing (Aetna's) sponsorship of university scholarships for black Americans as a means of restitution." (link).

those are both on the first page of results google gave me. nothing else on the page leads me to believe she's looking for a hand-out... though her claims that the targets of her lawsuit "have a moral obligation to apologize and share that wealth with the heirs of the Africans they helped maintain in slavery" will, as one commenter put it, play much better on cable news than they will before a judge.
posted by gangcandy at 12:24 AM on March 27, 2002

damn. second para: "... which prior to their refusal to offer anything beyond an APOLOGY..."
posted by gangcandy at 12:31 AM on March 27, 2002

... if their theory holds water, how do they explain how they [black lawyers et al] became wealthy and powerful as the descendants of slaves?

Now that is actually a very good point in some ways.

Me? I'm in favor of corporate reparations just cuz I think it's gross when people make money off suffering. And although the suffering in this case was legal, lots of things are legal that some find revolting or grossly unfair. I'm sure that anti-choice abortion clinic protestors would understand that... ;)
posted by RJ Reynolds at 12:36 AM on March 27, 2002

to that end, rj reynolds, do i get to sue the manufacturers of the drug testing kits my parents forced me to use as a teen if and when marijuana is decriminalized?

i mean... they made a profit by facilitating my parents legal right to search me for contraband. if it's not illegal to smoke a little weed, they've got a moral obligation to share the wealth they gained at my expense, right?

not to be a moral relativist, but that's why reparations are being decided in the courts and not in a f*cking gallop poll.
posted by gangcandy at 12:45 AM on March 27, 2002

gangacandy: I guess you can read it two ways, but my statement was leads me to believe she is not actually interested in anything other than her 15 minutes of fame. If she is truly pure of heart in this matter, more power to her but I'm still not convinced that she is. The fact that she is even touting such an astonomical sum and the weak merits of the case, which her legal team doesn't even deny, seem to indicate this is more for show than a legitimate attempt to put a reasonable value on damages.

Ed Fagan, a Livingston, N.J., lawyer who is among a team of attorneys representing the plaintiffs said

That list will probably grow to between 60 and 100 unless the defendants see the wisdom of acceding to what are reasonable demands.

What definition of shake-down does that statement not fulfill?

And the question that nobody on the pro-reparations team seems to want to address is, what about the Africans who captured other Africans and then sold them as slaves? Are not their crimes even more reprehensible? They captured the slaves. They sold the slaves. Why is Aetna being targeted for multi-millions for writing a couple of dozen insurance policies (and a couple of dozen is the number that Aetna has been proven of writing -- via their own discovery which was published in the 1950's and the suit being brought against them is based on)? -- Ooops, I forgot, this about money :-) Silly me.

And I'll just insert this here but RJ Reynolds makes a good point. What if they find abortion illegal tomorrow? Let's just say the mood of the country swings and the vast majority of people find the abortion of a fetus to be equvilant to murder. It would be absurd to even suggest under our current legal system that every doctor who performed an abortion be tried for murder. There's no legal basis for going back into history and suing people for things that were legal at the time they did them. But what if, on top of that, the families of of every person who had an abortion, could sue the companies that provided liability insurance to the doctors, the companies that made the medical instruments used in abortions, the companies who managed real estate leased to doctors who performed abortions, etc., etc.

You would say that was insane, right? Well then why should Aetna be sued for issuing an insurance policy on something that was legal the time that they insured it?

Personally, I think this is by far the most destructive thing the black community can do. First off, I highly doubt that with that kind of money at stake, the very survival of many of these companies, that they will not elaborate the history of slavery, in detail. The fact that slavery was practiced for thousands of years and that Africans sold slaves as a normal sort of business transaction will start to break down all of the myths about slavery that have been allowed to build up because of our need to purge that period from our own past. As the layers start peeling back, I don't think many in the black community are going to like what they see.

And, I really hope it doesn't happen but, if reparations are granted, I predict a level of violence in this country never seen before. You take a bunch of under-educated, poor white people and you mix in some old time white supremecy and the Middle East is going to look like a minor domestic disturbance. Just think of the number of pissed off people who will be out of work if you transfer $1.4 trillion in wealth. How long do you think it takes for a PC Democrat to become Klansman when his life is tuned upside down because he can't find a job because almost 1.5% of the entire GDP of the country is awarded in a lawsuit? Even if it doesn't result in rioting in the streets, any chance of normalized race relations is shot to hell for at least a few decades.
posted by billman at 2:07 AM on March 27, 2002

billman: In fact, contrary to Roots, white men did not go and hunt down Africans to bring back. They purchased them from other Africans.

That's what happened in Roots, actually.
posted by bingo at 3:55 AM on March 27, 2002

billman: I put a freakin' source up for you. In any case, what you read depends on what is consdidered "the North." The Census Bureau often includes Maryland, West Virginia and Delaware. Maryland may have once been considered southern, but I think it's safe to call it mid-Atlantic now. But Delaware? Anyway, according to this stie, blacks migrated from the South to the North and other states, and the percentage swung in favor of the North. It's generally thought that the population only began swinging back in favor of the South in the 1990s. But, again, those estimates are including South Florida.
posted by raysmj at 4:31 AM on March 27, 2002

Here's another article on black migration to "the south" (if you consider Tampa and Orlando southern). The article does make the point, however, that the trend of blacks returning to the Southern states and migrating to South Florida began in earnest in the 1990s, not the 1980s.
posted by raysmj at 4:48 AM on March 27, 2002

The bottom line though is, why would a black man (or woman) from the Bahamas, recently released from slavery, perform, economically, better than a black man released from slavery from the South? A racist sees only a black man, right?

Differences in the political culture of the countries, differences in how West Indian slaves were treated compared to American slaves, differences in how egalitarian the societies are, differences in when slavery was abolished. Did they have Jim Crow laws in the Carribean? Did they have lynchings like we did?

My point is that a big part part of the problem in this country was that the abolishion of slavery was followed by pervasive institutionalized discrimination against blacks for an additional 100 years or so. So its apples and oranges in a way.

Do you happen to know how well formerly enslaved West Indians perform compared to their non-enslaved West Indian countrymen? It seems like that would be the more meaningful comparison.
posted by boltman at 5:37 AM on March 27, 2002

billman: In fact, contrary to Roots, white men did not go and hunt down Africans to bring back. They purchased them from other Africans.

That's what happened in Roots, actually.

Yeah, well, Roots was wrong, in more ways than this. White Europeans, by all historical accounts, merely plugged their need for labor into a pre-existing slave trade. There may have been raids on African villages, but these were generally led by Muslim traders. A reliable source for this is The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 by Thomas Pakenham.
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:40 AM on March 27, 2002

And, I really hope it doesn't happen but, if reparations are granted, I predict a level of violence in this country never seen before. You take a bunch of under-educated, poor white people and you mix in some old time white supremecy and the Middle East is going to look like a minor domestic disturbance. Just think of the number of pissed off people who will be out of work if you transfer $1.4 trillion in wealth. How long do you think it takes for a PC Democrat to become Klansman when his life is tuned upside down because he can't find a job because almost 1.5% of the entire GDP of the country is awarded in a lawsuit? Even if it doesn't result in rioting in the streets, any chance of normalized race relations is shot to hell for at least a few decades.

Actually, if the numbers in the original article are correct, it's fully 13.6% of GDP, not 1.5%.

And this is what sets off my Massive Bullshit Meter about this case. They're only suing three companies, and probably 12 others in the near future, yet they expect to get over 1/8 of the entire wealth of the United States out of it? Either the plaintiffs are lying through their teeth, or this is merely step one of their master plan to eventually go after the government ... and that means going after every taxpayer in the country. (In their defense, though, they didn't sue for any specific monetary amount; they just threw that number out to the media. But they, or somebody, is going to have to come up with "the right numbers" at some point if they win ... and if they win any jury/judge would be quite likely to take the plaintiff's vision of damages very seriously.)

Anyway, billman, IMHO you're majorly underestimating the potential response to this. Do you really think the only people that would be mad enough over this to take to the streets are "uneducated" poor whites and white supremicists? I've said this a million times before and I'll say it again: The only two subjects I've ever seen cause a number of otherwise rational people to get worked up enough to talk about commiting mass violence are door-to-door government gun confiscation and redistribution-of-wealth reparations payoffs. And I never had these discussions in the South; I had them in Manhattan, with generally well-off people of a mixture of races, creeds, religions, etc. They wouldn't be "race riots," though of course a number of true morons would indeed go after a lot of random innocent people based purely on skin color. For the most part though, I think they would simply be anti-government riots. You try to take ~15% of anyone's property against their will, as punishment for something they never did, then many of them will use some sort of force against who they see as the robbers, as much as if a man tried to attack them while they were making a withdrawal at an ATM. Most Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, and such a massive chunk taken out of their income would cause them serious financial distress. They would absolutely crack as a result. We can only pray they would see some imaginary legal creation like "the government" as the "robbers" in such a case, instead of seeing all African-Americans as the "robbers."

Come to think of it, after writing that paragraph, maybe the results would be worse than I thought. All I can say is, these plaintiffs are not playing with dynamite, they're playing with plutonium and juggling fission triggers at the same time. God help them, and all of us, if they win.
posted by aaron at 6:45 AM on March 27, 2002

Sadly, I have to agree with aaron. (Sad that it's true - not that I agree with aaron... ~grin~) If there is one topic in this world that starts me to go off into a knee-jerk reaction, it's this one. Part of me wants to reel off my usual list of reasons why the idea is hideous, and my opinion of those who feel they need this generation to pay for the sins of the grandfathers (in a part of the country my family has never lived in, and a family who had seven volunteers in the union army , three of which gave lives to fight against). ((See... there they are, just under the surface, fighting to get out...))

I can say without a doubt that reparations would disgust me. And it wouldn't be the Government I would be disgusted with: it would be those who did not suffer at all, taking my money for non-crimes my family never committed in the first place. I consider myself not at all prejudiced... but I would become so, quickly and ardently.

Reparations seekers should decide what is more important - personal wealth, or the continuing course of mutual racial respect. To gain one, they must lose the other.

((As a indicator of my racial opinions, here is my work for this past Black History Month. If this topic can make me feel this way, who is immune?))
posted by Perigee at 9:12 AM on March 27, 2002

Americans never "cracked" over a progressive income tax. (It actually had the first in the world, until it was struck down by a laissez faire Supreme Court in the late 19th Century.) They never cracked over Keynesian economic theory put into practice. They never cracked over the billions spent on handicapped accessibility in the '80s and '90s. They never cracked over paying for billions of dollars redistributed to your home state of West Virginia. Mississippians did not crack in the '90s when ordered (in a revolutionary 1992 Supreme Court decision) to spend millions of dollars already needed elsewhere to keep a racial balance at its colleges and universities. (The economy was doing well. It didn't matter so much.)

Please present evidence for your position, aaron, other than discussions with friends, in New York or anywhere else. Seems to me it's more a matter of who exploits what, how and when.
posted by raysmj at 9:21 AM on March 27, 2002

aaron:

Do you really think the only people that would be mad enough over this to take to the streets are "uneducated" poor whites and white supremicists?

Actually no. I was trying to mind my PC P's and Q's. I actually envision something more like you describe but thought that such an extremist view might open itself to nitpicking which would detract from the main point. I thought we could all see a large percentage of rednecks becoming militant so I used the toned-down version.

And I don't believe the hatred will be specific to white people. I would not be surprised if the violence against blacks began in the Hispanic community who, at least in Los Angeles, lives in close proximity to the black community and lives in similar or worse economic conditions. In fact, if tensions arise in the non-white communities first, I think the problem will be that much worse because it will allow many white people to self-eliminate race as the cause of their anger. Since they will be sharing the same feelings as the Hispanic community, and whatever non-white ethnic minorities who condemn reparations, it will be that much easier for people to justify their actions.

At a minimum though, as I mentioned previously, they don't even have to win to start driving this wedge into society. With the kinds of numbers they are throwing out, you are pinning people into a corner and making them fight for their survival. Some of these companies may not survive so being PC will be the first casualty of war.

And just to answer raysmj's point about evidence, you can't provide evidence for such an unprecidented act. First off there are distinctions between your examples and reparations. Reparations are based on race. People don't look at handicapped people wanting access to a building as being greedy. Blacks wanting $1.4 trillion dollars for being black, when the average black today is anywhere from 4 - 8 generations removed from the crime, that I can guarantee you will be viewed by many as being greedy and self-serving. Look at the reactions of people on MeFi. This is a fairly intelligent, liberal to centrist crowd and you've got people talking about race wars.

Reparations will be the black communities Sept. 11. I saw people, self-proclaimed pacifists, liberals, say stuff like "For the first time in my life, I feel that we need to kill these people" You have students boo'ing professors for making anti-American remarks where on Sept. 10th they would have been snickering in agreement. Make no mistake about it, reparations will polarize the races in the US.
posted by billman at 9:58 AM on March 27, 2002

billman: You, again, present no hard evidence for this. Absolutely no American redistributional legislation and court rulings of the past point to any such outcome. The only thing that does is the (delayed) reaction to Brown v. Board and other desegregation rulings. You're consequently talking racial tension at work here, no tension over redistrubtion. You'd yell about this, yes, as will other politicians and pundits, which in itself might start a riot. But not any redistributional court ruling or legislation in and of itself. And you don't know my feelings about this case in general, so don't presume that you do. (Just remember that before you start going off, in other words.) Thanks.
posted by raysmj at 10:06 AM on March 27, 2002

The only people really talking about race wars - or the people who brought them up, rather - are conservatives on here, not anyone center-to-left. And you've dominated the conversation. C'mon!
posted by raysmj at 10:11 AM on March 27, 2002

Well, if this money were distributed, would that mean that nobody could ever claim race as a factor in anything ever again? If not, why not?
posted by aramaic at 10:13 AM on March 27, 2002

I'm not a lawyer, but I just don't understand how the legal process would begin to deal with something this huge, after this many years. The legal system is based on specifics, and the specifics would be overwhelming.

There is precedent for compensating specific individuals for specific wrongs that happened at a specific time period many years ago. The destruction of Rosewood, FL in 1923 (full report here) is one example of Jim Crow era racism that was addressed by the FL state legislature and courts 70 years later. There are (or were, anyway) witnesses in this case - something this monstrosity of a case would lack.

Other than the redistribution of dollars, what would be gained? The backlash against a favorable ruling for the plaintiffs would seem to outweigh any possible benefit.
posted by groundhog at 10:25 AM on March 27, 2002

For some people, 'the American Dream' is unearned income. Slavery was immoral but it was legal. Why not sue the descendants of those who sold people as slaves, Africans to whom modern day slavery is not unknown? I know, let's Mugabeeize the whole world, that will fix everything.
posted by Mack Twain at 10:37 AM on March 27, 2002

If I may interject again, I don't think it even needs to come down to a favorable ruling. So far, I've pretty much viewed this whole thing as isolated incidents of rotten, grasping people trying to pull a con game for some quick cash - it hasn't affected my worldview.

If the subject becomes more decisively preponderant in the country, then whether the case is won or lost, my opinion will have been shadowed.

Fortunately, it is indeed just a few slimeballs with no interests beyond their own pockets. I've never heard, nor do I believe that it is anywhere near a majority desire to seek and recieve reparations. Sometimes we just need to step back from a knee-jerk reaction and see what the big picture is.

At least, I know I need to.
posted by Perigee at 10:43 AM on March 27, 2002

raysmj: I can't provide evidence for an unprecidented action. I'm telling you what I speculate, what I fear might happen. I could be wrong, and I pray to God that I am. I pray even harder that it doesn't come to that.

And you're correct, I'm talking racial tensions. Racial tensions that manifest themselves via reparations. Similar to racial tensions that erupted over the Rodney King beating here in Los Angeles. Reparations have that same potential except, I highly doubt white people will start looting and burning their own neighborhoods. Take a wild guess where you think they'll start.

aramaic:

Well, if this money were distributed, would that mean that nobody could ever claim race as a factor in anything ever again? If not, why not?

Actually, sadly, no. Some of the stories on this recent filing indicate that leaders of other ethnic groups are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see if how this case turns out. If successful, expect to see Native Americans, Mexicans, and a whole laundry list of groups start filing petitions for reparations. This seems to be nothing more than an attempt to cash out.
posted by billman at 10:51 AM on March 27, 2002

perigree: Yes, and (not you, precisely) stop practically frothing at the mouth about race wars. If it's a sham, it'll be thrown out of court eventually, as most sham suits are (honestly - or knocked down to a small damages amount, one). Yikes. If you don't think so, you should be out there rioting already.
posted by raysmj at 10:57 AM on March 27, 2002

Mo Nickels: White Europeans, by all historical accounts, merely plugged their need for labor into a pre-existing slave trade. There may have been raids on African villages, but these were generally led by Muslim traders.

Don't you think that the "needs" of the "white europeans" increased the demand for slave labor significantly? And if there were not raids on African villages, how were the slaves obtained? Recruitment centers?
posted by bingo at 11:00 AM on March 27, 2002

bingo: increased demand, yes. created demand, no. Again, slavery has been a big business for thousands and thousands of years. Africa just happened to be the part of the world slavery was centered in at the time the US was formed.
posted by billman at 11:17 AM on March 27, 2002

This entire case became irrelevant when I saw that King Of Ambulance Chasers Johnnie Cochran was involved. America isn't equal, but raking corporations over the coals for things they may or may not have done in the past to fund some nebulous endowment smacks of outright stupidity to me.

I think the differences between Black Americans and West Indian Blacks (disclousure - I am a first generation of the first, from a lineage of the second). Comes down to cultural work ethic/values - which in general are like night and day.
posted by owillis at 11:24 AM on March 27, 2002

as most sham suits are

Uh . . . we are talking about the same legal system here, aren't we? You know, the one that awards people $2 million for spilling hot coffee in their own lap? The one where an OJ Simpson can get a not guilty verdict?
posted by billman at 11:30 AM on March 27, 2002

Comes down to cultural work ethic/values - which in general are like night and day.

owillis, good, I was hoping you might comment. You always seem to have an interesting perspective and on this topic, I thought your insights might be particularly relevent.

One of the things that I've heard this attributed to is the fact that slaves in Caribbean nations were allowed to keep very small gardens and sell what they grew. This lead to a spirit of entrepreneurism that slaves in the US never developed. When slavery was eventually abolished, West-Indians came to the US armed with this skill/cultural background, and thus advanced into US society both economically and socially far quicker than did US slaves. I guess the point being that, again, racism played only a minor role, it was the cultural differences between two groups of people who visually could not be distinguished that lead to the advancement of one over the other. So, it would seem to make sense, that if you can introduce certain values into the culture you can impact the outcomes.
posted by billman at 11:41 AM on March 27, 2002

bingo: most slaves, at least initially, were gained as a result of local war. It was often profitable to take the prisoners back as slaves, for use at home. When someone offered to give money for slaves, it was even more profitable, and you could get rid of "problem slaves" to somewhere that wouldn't bother you again. So I learned in a PBS documentary, oddly enough. Good shows, there.

But, it is easily feasable that an increase in demand for slaves would have necessarily driven up local wars, and later raiding parties, to gain "product" for sale.
posted by dwivian at 11:42 AM on March 27, 2002

Americans never "cracked" over a progressive income tax....[many other examples snipped]

None of those examples you gave constituted any form of taxation intended purely as payoffs to a specific racial group of people, implmented as punishment towards individual citizens that did nothing wrong, on a level that constituted over 1/8 of the entire GDP of the entire nation. (And at that amount of money, every non-black taxpayer would pay and pay, as individual citizens, regardless of who's listed as the defendent on the court documents.) Apples and oranges.

Please present evidence for your position, aaron, other than discussions with friends, in New York or anywhere else. Seems to me it's more a matter of who exploits what, how and when.

No. It's anecdotal evidence and was presented as such. If you don't believe it, fine with me. Time will tell which of us is right, if they actually manage to win.
posted by aaron at 11:57 AM on March 27, 2002

billman: increased demand, yes. created demand, no.

How can something increase without more of it being created?
posted by bingo at 12:03 PM on March 27, 2002

bingo: It's kinda like a kid. You can create one, but when they grow up you didn't create more kid -- you let the kid expand itself. Otherwise you have more kids.

More accurately -- demand is a static entity. You create it, and it can grow or diminish (even die away, requiring a re-creation to exist). You don't create more demand after a demand exists; you fuel it.

Your point is still valid, though.
posted by dwivian at 12:11 PM on March 27, 2002

aaron: If it's apples and oranges, you should have made the distinction in your original post. You didn't. You termed this a form of redistribution. And yeah, the money did go in these examples to specific groups who did nothing wrong, just not racial groups and not, in any specific cases, through a lawsuit alone.

Also, what I'm saying to you in prove it is tell me why this would happen, exactly. If so, you can't say it's just redistribution. That's not totally it, or even partially.
posted by raysmj at 12:32 PM on March 27, 2002

To spell it out: You might have riots over racial reparations. Hell, I dunno, any more than you do. I doubt this suit will even get very far, although stranger things have happened in history. What I can say, with certainty, is that the riots would not be over redistribution of income. That's horses***.
posted by raysmj at 12:43 PM on March 27, 2002

bingo:

Let's say there's a liquor store on Main and Maple. That store has been there for 20 years and has been selling beer to residents of the neighborhood for that entire 20 years. If I move into the neighborhood and go in and buy a six pack, I did not create the demand for beer. The demand for beer existed before I even moved in. Now, if I go and buy one six pack a week, every week, I still have not created the demand for beer, I have simply increased the demand for beer by one six pack a week. If I quit buying beer, I have decreased the demand for beer by one six pack a week but I have not eliminated it since the rest of the neighborhood still is buying beer.

Slave trade was a business that was in existance long before Christopher Columbus set foot in North America. The US became one of many customers of slaves and the slave trade continued long after the US quit buying slaves and is, in fact, still in operation today in certain African countries.
posted by billman at 2:55 PM on March 27, 2002

Hey billman! Yeah, same system. Also, O.J. lost a fortune in that same civil system.
posted by raysmj at 2:56 PM on March 27, 2002

raysmj: Well then I guess instead of calling it justice, we should just call it the law of averages. You have a 50/50 chance of actually receiving justice, but the upside is, if you lose, then someone who was supposed to be punished wins. Screw the courts, give me Vegas! At least you know the odds going in :-)
posted by billman at 3:32 PM on March 27, 2002

How can something increase without more of it being created? See the evolution thread...
posted by Mack Twain at 4:22 PM on March 27, 2002

Mack Twain: You are evil. I read that whole thread expecting to see some applicable point and ha, instead I got caught up in a very good thread. You're very sly, very sly. :-)
posted by billman at 5:14 PM on March 27, 2002

Raysmj, you and billman et al are using the term "income redistribution" for two different things.

What I can say, with certainty, is that the riots would not be over redistribution of income.

Because there haven't ever been such riots in the past, eh? Fine. But what billman is describing is unprecedented in history anyway. There's never been an instant-redistribution on the scale you're talking about (at least where the 1.4 trillion figure is concerned.) That's the point you finally got around to making; there was no need to be so vitriolic about it. After all, we need to say something instead of "the 1.4 trillion dollar slavery reparation settlement."

But you're looking at a meaningless hypothetical anyway. If the 1.4 trillion figure did wind up being the final settlement, it would certainly not be paid in one lump sum to all the plaintiffs listed in the suit. It would probably be paid out over a period of years (a lot of years), or redirected into some overall fund used to aid african-american groups.

Also undiscussed in this thread is the problem of where the money would go once it's on the hands of minorities. You can't just throw money at a problem to make it go away,

Example: Years ago the federal government decided it was tired of dealing with Indian reservations. So, here's what it did: the government paid native americans on agreeing reservations a lump sum for their land. In theory, that meant that it was settled; the government had paid it's debt, and native americans could now use the money to invest, start a business, or whatever to become members of society.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't work. The money was squandered in a matter of years; either through scams or poor money management. The lesson? You can't just inject a lot of money (i.e., raise the yearly income) into a community and expect it to solve the problem. The problem with just being given money is that you never need to acquire the skills necessary to manage that money.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 5:14 PM on March 27, 2002

Yelling at Nothing: That there have been no riots over income redistribution in the past (except from those not getting the income, never the reverse Randian fantasy) proves that there won't be one in the future on its face. There's a term for it: Face validity. There's never been a massive, "instant" redistribution? Progressive taxation is just that - or, at least, was meant to be before it got watered down with seemingly endless loopholes. It just seems fairly painless, the way it's done. People learn to live with it or, it seems, then learn to incrementally battle their way back to their previous position, thus starting the whole battle for "reform" again.

What would be more unique about a settlement or a jury's handing down redistributional damages is the announcement. Everyone would know about it, around the same time, no matter how the money is ultimately administered. What upsets people about large awards oftetimes is, I think, just this very thing. Few people check to see how the awards came out on appeal, and newspapers and TV news don't publicize it much either. In such a high-profile case, however, I highly doubt that such an announcement would come out of the blue - not that I think it will ever come at all, though you never know.
posted by raysmj at 5:40 PM on March 27, 2002

OK, nothing is proven by the face validity thing. But I think the hypothesis is sound, for that reason.
posted by raysmj at 5:48 PM on March 27, 2002

just a note: as a bleeding-heart liberal, I feel it only fair to add my anecdotal evidence to this thread; say the same thing was happening in Canada, and the government tapped me on the shoulder and said, hey, we know we're already taking most of your paycheck, but we need 15% more to pay back these Natives who we screwed over last century or so...

I would be furious. I barely make enough to live on as it is, and now they're taking my money to give it to someone who's too lazy to earn their own? That's how I'd react. And I actually can't think of anyone, at all, who wouldn't be pissed off at having reparations taken out in taxes. And I'm part Native myself - and it would still piss me off. And it would piss me off even more to see relations between Natives and non-Natives set back fifty years because everyone else is now pissed off at Native people for asking for reparations in the first place! It's a vicious circle.

Not that that's what this thread is about. Just some anecdotal evidence from someone who is definitely not conservative.
posted by Nyx at 9:21 PM on March 27, 2002

Nyx: No one ever tapped you on the shoulder - or anyone in your family - to take the first 15 percent of your income. It never works that way. That 15 percent would be huge, certainly, but where's that figure coming from regardless? The only other one I've seen is $1.4 trillion, spread out over several years. That's smaller than the Bush tax cut. That won't represent a whopping 15 percent of anyone's income, since it's spread out over several years too. By the same token, this suit involves corporations. I'm still not saying the suit is right, or that it will even be successful. I'm onlys saying that I'm tired of reading BS arguments. Viva rationality, from those doing the suing as well as the protesting!
posted by raysmj at 11:07 PM on March 27, 2002

raysmj: spread out over several years

That's not quite accurate. The plantiff has not asked for the money over several years so I can only assume that you are basing this on an assumption or a unqualified guess.

I'm tired of reading BS arguments

But don't you see, you don't have to agree with the arguments for people to be pissed off. It's not a requirement. People will get pissed off regardless of your desire to hear their argument. In fact, many may not even be able to articulate their anger into words, which was my point. How many people who rioted after the Rodney King verdicts (actually the police officer verdicts) sat down and reasoned what the jury had said? How much logic do you think was involved in shooting firefighters in the face? Pulling people from trucks and beating them with bricks? This ruling is not going to be toned down in the minds of many simply because it can be rationalized. I think many people recognize it for what it really is, a shake-down.
posted by billman at 7:23 AM on March 28, 2002

billman: Pay attention. I was referring to the only statement of an exactly monetary amount that I had seen in this thread. The rest of your thread is hysterical - as in, overwrought, in having no connection to what I was saying at all.
posted by raysmj at 7:57 AM on March 28, 2002

Ray, you've been in this thread doggedly attacking everyone else's position.. while, as you stated yourself, never taking a position of your own.

After watching all of this rather rabid declarations from the fence, I would love to see you actually stand up and state your own opinion of the issue.
posted by Perigee at 9:26 AM on March 28, 2002

Perigree: I neither owe you no, nor billman, any such comment. I wasn't attacking several positions regardles, but one - the idea that income redistribution will automatically bring a riot.
posted by raysmj at 9:45 AM on March 28, 2002

You owe no one anything, ray. I was genuinely interested in hearing your opinion, rather than your anti-advocacy. But your choice not to stand up and state your own opinion does place your comments into a lesser light, as far as I'm concerned.
posted by Perigee at 11:55 AM on March 28, 2002

Well, OK. In a lesser light than people who change their whole opinion of black people or civil rights (as implied by yourself) or who see a "Sept. 11 for black people" on the horizon? Great. Methinks the issues here are really complicated, actually, and anyone who denies the effect of slavery (or, more accurately, slavery combined with Jim Crow) on American blacks as a group is delusional. I don't think the Jamaican immigrants doing better the whole proves a thing. Is there a selection bias here? I don't see the economies back at home booming there, exactly. At any rate, I don't think this suit will be successful, but certainly we'd do well to have a more sensible conversation about how to deal with ongoing, out-of-proportion black poverty here. That talk should include more than affirmative action and all the usual suspects. And that takes rational thought and consideration for fellow human beings, on all sides - not crap about race wars.
posted by raysmj at 12:59 PM on March 28, 2002

There - an opinion. Didn't hurt a bit, and you put yourself on the map. I'll bet it didn't hurt a bit, and I don't disagree with a thing. Thanks for finally coming foward; its not like I was at you with an ad-hominum attack.

So.. why did you feel the need for one?
posted by Perigee at 1:15 PM on March 28, 2002

Mainly because you were pushy and condescending. ("I think less of you.") That's it. But don't take it too personally!
posted by raysmj at 3:36 PM on March 28, 2002

A full and deep conversation on slavery and its legacy has never taken place in America; reparations litigation will show what slavery meant, how it was profitable and how it has continued to affect the opportunities of millions of black Americans.

From this NYT editorial--you know the drill--
by Charles J. Ogletree Jr.
Harvard Law School and co-chair man of the Reparations Coordinating Committee.
posted by y2karl at 12:46 PM on March 31, 2002

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