this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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114
New York will set up a commission to consider reparations for slavery (apnews.com)
submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

New York state will create a commission tasked with considering reparations to address the persistent, harmful effects of slavery in the state, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.

It comes at a time when many states and towns throughout the United States attempt to figure out how to best reckon with the country’s dark past, and follows in the footsteps of similar task forces established in California and Illinois.

“In New York, we like to think we’re on the right side of this. Slavery was a product of the South, the Confederacy,” Hochul, a Democrat, said at the bill signing ceremony in New York City. “What is hard to embrace is the fact that our state also flourished from that slavery. It’s not a beautiful story, but indeed it is the truth.”

The law, which was passed by state lawmakers in June, says the commission will examine the institution of slavery, which was fully abolished in New York by 1827, and its ongoing impact on Black New Yorkers today.

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[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

When I see this talk about reparations for slavery, I can't help thinking that Americans are still not facing the historical facts.

Brown v. Board of Education was in 1954. African-Americans were, by law, by the government, denied a proper education. The pioneers who fought for their right to an education are still alive. Which means that the people who were denied an education are also still alive.

There's a lot of history post-slavery that explains the situation in the US today, such as the countless anti-black pogroms, in which African-Americans had their possessions stolen or destroyed. But government-mandated school "segregation" is one thing where it is immediately obvious that: Living African-Americans did not have the same opportunities and must necessarily be poorer because of government action.

It's crazy to me that there is talk about reparations for slavery but not about damages for crimes committed against people still living today.

[–] SulaymanF@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That’s why I think affirmative action makes more sense than a one-time reparations payment. It’s the only way to reverse the issue at a societal level.

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

It may be good politics, but I am critical of it. The victims of American racism were individual human beings. AA does not look at the individual and what harm they suffered, but again, only looks at the color of the skin.

The election of Barack Obama was a great victory for the USA, but also an indictment. He was not born into an African American family, deprived by segregation. (The British occupation of Kenya was brutal, particularly during the last stage - the Mau Mau rebellion, with its 10,000s of dead - when his father came to the US. But I don't know what his family's role was.)

All over the world, we can see that having less educated parents is a burden for the academic success of children. This is completely unrelated to racism. Less educated parents can't help with homework as much, or impart academic knowledge in passing. I can't even imagine what it is like, on top, to have parents/grandparents who have only ever known a good education as something that gets you murdered by white people.

Obama did not have all that ancestral baggage, and he had this brilliant career. That's common for recent African immigrants.

Maybe AA helps the US become a better, stronger nation. But I worry that it may perpetuate damage by still practicing differential treatment, based on assigned racial category. In any case, it does nothing to redress the concrete harm, done to individual human beings.

[–] SulaymanF@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

AA is a societal remedy to a societal-level injustice. Redlining and biased admissions policies only looked at the color of one’s skin too.

Obama talked about this at length; regardless of his family past he also suffered racism, whether it was trying to get a taxi or how people treated him in the workplace.

Less educated parents creates a cycle of poverty, which is one of the reasons AA is used as a remedy to address the fact that white Americans were given more opportunities including scholarships and housing benefits that were denied to POC.

AA shouldn’t be permanent but we are not past the injustices yet.

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

only looked at the color of one’s skin too

Yes, that's one problem I pointed out. It continues that tradition.

What you say about its effects is how it may help the US. It may help American society benefit from talents that would otherwise lay fallow. It also may have other positive effects. If it works as intended, it will benefit the nation by making it richer and stronger.

What it doesn't do is address past injustices. These injustices were countless individual crimes that happened to individual human beings.

[–] SulaymanF@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

It’s impossible to adjudicate every individual injustice by this point, which is why a larger societal-level fix is necessary.

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

This isn’t going to help Democrats when the election comes to town.

[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 years ago

Red lining and white flight I imagine are alive and well in the state with the most segregated school system in the country. (Or is it just NYC that is the most segregated?) Policy choices continue to send black new yorkers down a worse path than white ones. Stop and frisk is here and now. I always felt that reparations for slavery would be best spent in the school system, but NY would really have to pull a lot more strings to correct for the second class citizenship caused by slavery. To be fair, I'm glad Hochul is trying to correct so many wrongs in her state. But I'm also angry that Eric Adams is in office right now.

[–] alienanimals@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

The 1% of this country have fucked everyone. How about everyone except them gets reparations?

[–] a9249@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How about fixing modern-day slavery first? -- see: for profit prisons and "labor leasing programs"

[–] Gargantu8@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Whataboutism

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

I've always contended the sale or profits of slave built buildings and infrastructure held by the US government could be used to fund programs to help descendants of slaves and be redirected to educational grants.

[–] pan_troglodytes@programming.dev -1 points 2 years ago (6 children)

there hasnt been any slavery in New York in basically 200 years. no one affected by it is alive now. nor are their children, or even their children's children.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A lot of the old money that built New York, like the Vanderbilts, Goldman, and Lehman families became rich on the backs of slaves. The ancestors of the slave owners inherited that wealth and with it the debt to the ancestors of their slaves.

[–] Drusas@kbin.social 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And it should be those families paying reparations.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Those families did things like build parks, libraries, museums, concert halls, and schools that New Yorkers all have benefitted from. If you live in New York (or The US in general), you have benefitted from the spoils of slavery.

[–] Drusas@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As do the descendants of slaves who have those same amenities available.

That's not the argument you think it is. Also, my family came over poor on both sides. We weren't the ones doing the oppressing.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Black people were systematically prevented from benefiting from those amenities for generations (and sometimes still are).

My family are poor immigrants on both sides too. That doesn't matter. If you buy a house and later find out that the plumbing is bad, that is your responsibility even though you didn't create the problem. We inherited this country and with it the obligation to fix the broken parts.

[–] Drusas@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I understand what you're saying but disagree with your ultimate conclusion.

The average modern-day American did not directly benefit from slavery and many didn't even come to the country until after slavery had been long since abolished. Some of those people were also treated as ethnic minorities though they may be seen as "white" now. Which is to say, they were terribly disadvantaged in the American economy because they were immigrants or descended from the "wrong" background.

Any reparations that are to be made should be made by the perpetrators or those who have directly benefited from said perpetrators' actions. To tax other impoverished lineages in order to provide reparations to another group which had it even worse is unjust.

I do firmly believe that the country needs to address its systemic issues, but I don't believe that taxing the majority to give cash to the aggrieved is the solution.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It is an undeniable fact that modern Americans benefitted from slavery and black Americans are still harmed by it.

In US counties today, a larger local slave population in the past was correlated with lower percentages of uninsured white people, higher white median incomes, lower white poverty rates, higher white homeownership rates, and lower percentages of white people on food stamps.

http://www.wipsociology.org/2019/10/10/the-past-is-the-past-how-slavery-still-benefits-white-americans/

Slavery was an early driver of economic growth. The US simply would not be in the high economic position it is now and the African countries who were raised for their population would not be so comparatively impoverished.

https://equitablegrowth.org/new-research-shows-slaverys-central-role-in-u-s-economic-growth-leading-up-to-the-civil-war/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2017/05/03/the-clear-connection-between-slavery-and-american-capitalism/?sh=4c1b5d6d7bd3

The perpetrator of slavery was ultimately the American government who made it legalized, encouraged, and enforced it. As the current stewards of our government, we are all responsible for the harm done in the past and the harm still being done to our fellow Americans.

[–] Drusas@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It is an undeniable fact that modern Americans benefitted from slavery and black Americans are still harmed by it.

I acknowledged that previously. Regardless, once again, I fully understand what you're saying but don't agree with your conclusion.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So basically you acknowledge black people are harmed by past slavery, but don't think anything should be done about it. Nice.

[–] Drusas@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

No. Not what I said at all.

[–] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

no one affected by it is alive now. nor are their children, or even their children's children.

You're wrong there. All the descendants of the white slave owners are people who profited from slavery through inheritances.

[–] pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What percentage of Americans are descendants of slave owners? a lot of Americans didn’t even immigrate to the untitled states until after slavery was abolished.

[–] pan_troglodytes@programming.dev 4 points 2 years ago

What percentage of Americans are descendants of slave owners

it's a vanishingly small number. only around 6% of all Americans were slave owners. some were killed during the civil war, others in succeeding wars (notably WW1 and WW2) - the current number is unknown as that isnt really tracked, but it's unlikely to be more than 4% of the current population.

you cant really fault the decedents for what happened 200 years ago though - they werent there, their parents, and even grandparents werent born yet. for most families it's been 5 or 6 generations (or more). getting reparations would be something that should have been attempted 200 years ago. it's simply laughable to consider it now.

[–] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca -2 points 2 years ago

You could look that up and let us know.

[–] Good_morning@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 2 years ago

People apart from the Uber elite get inheritance? Unless they die suddenly, I assumed it all went to end of life care or scammers

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

no one affected by it is alive now

Millions of people are still affected. Black people are much poorer on average, which leads to a circle of misery involving everything from access to education, to crime rate, to perpetuation of racism, that keeps them down.

Just because the original victims and perpetrators are dead doesn't mean the crime is not creating new victims every day.

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

And it's not just slavery. It's centuries of racism inherent to social, legal, political, and economic systems that continue to have ramifications. The civil rights movement was only 65 years ago (wait, 65 years? Oh, how the time flies) and everyone knows that absolutely did not solve racist policy in the US.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world -3 points 2 years ago

no one affected by it is alive now. nor are their children, or even their children's children

You are almost certainly wrong about that, and they deserve to be compensated for the labor that was robbed of their ancestors.