LogFAQs > #931048203

Mead posted...

I get the idea behind it but dividing up government assistance programs based on skin color doesnt seem like the best direction for the country to head down

Id rather see them use the money to help low income areas, which often have many black residents so it would still help the black community without being discriminatory

While that would probably be more effective, the nature of reparations is that they're specific to the population that has been wronged, in an effort to compensate for that wrong. In the case of slavery and subsequent systemic racism in America, that line does get drawn on the basis of skin colour.

Now, the fact that it's applying to all black people and not just those with ancestral ties to slaves? That's pretty silly.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Reparations definitely are.

Not inherently. Reparations are (in theory) doled out based on association to some historical wrongdoing. It just so happens that a lot of historical wrongdoing has had a racial element to it because people have always been racist dickbags. There's no reason reparations couldn't be given out to, say, the residents of a mining town that lost a sizable number of residents in a mining disaster, paid out by all parties that can be associated with creating or profiting from the unsafe working conditions that triggered it.

CaptainStrong posted...

So what about poor white people? Do they not get any help just because they're white? That seems a little racist to me.

Poor white people would not receive reparations for the slavery of black people, no. Other varieties of income assistance? Sure. But not reparations for slavery.
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