Wut? If you taxed someone making $10mil/year 98%, they'd be making no money. lol
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Reparations for black folk, how should we do it
- Thread starter Chrome Hyena
- Start date
I mean they'd be making almost nothing (in relativity) after taxes.
And you'd be wrong.
Tax is progressive, you dont' pay 98% on every cent made, only on the money made after $10 million. that person would take home 5.8 million. presumably this hypothetical tax rework would have a few more steps, but a multi-millionaire would still be taking home millions after tax.
I'm not American, but what's the worst that can happen if you don't tax black people for 60 years of their lives
There is just one problem who qualifies as black?
Is it by self-identification? If so the system will be abused like hell.
Is it by historical documents? That would screw over people who don't have any but are sure their ancestors were slaves.
Is it by racial appearance? Under that system an immigrant from Somali could claim reparations but a white looking person with black slave ancestors would get screwed over.
I guess you could use DNA tests for utmost certainty as many Federal Tribes do? Though tough luck getting millions of people to willingly submit to such a test.
Is it by self-identification? If so the system will be abused like hell.
Is it by historical documents? That would screw over people who don't have any but are sure their ancestors were slaves.
Is it by racial appearance? Under that system an immigrant from Somali could claim reparations but a white looking person with black slave ancestors would get screwed over.
I guess you could use DNA tests for utmost certainty as many Federal Tribes do? Though tough luck getting millions of people to willingly submit to such a test.
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everyone would claim they are black and republicans would pass a law stating your racial identity cannot be tested and is only what you self identify as
IMO the biggest thing that can be done is working to fix the system as difficult as it would be. Reparations in terms of financial compensation is never, ever going to pass at this point unless there's an unprecedented political and demographic shift.
Give black Americans the red bits. Set up a new interim government with Coates as Prime Minister. Law of Return for all diaspora blacks.
Black America has suffered enough, now you want to repackage a shitty gift for Christmas by handing them the worst parts of the US?
It would be nice if we could even start with better investment in schools, public transportation, health care, job training, employment placement, etc in the poorest and most forgotten about black communities. Remove racially motivated non violent criminal convictions from people's records, offer very low or no interest loans for new businesses run by the black community. Basically do whatever can be done to lift communities up as much as possible. I don't necessarily like the idea of a flat payment up front but rather give back over time. So many people who have been effected by systematic racism over the years only need the opportunity to succeed.
Most of these ideas are all extremely wishful thinking unfortunately.
The only one I can think of being palatable to enough Americans in the near future is providing free college education, or at a reduced cost. Or simply increased government investment into black neighborhoods. Other than that, some of these suggestions will literally cause riots.
The only one I can think of being palatable to enough Americans in the near future is providing free college education, or at a reduced cost. Or simply increased government investment into black neighborhoods. Other than that, some of these suggestions will literally cause riots.
That's not reparations, that should be happening regardless.
Things like free college, free healthcare, etc. are things that need to be given to all Americans. Reparations need to be ON TOP OF those benefits. Exemption from taxes or yearly cash payments would be beneficial, for all black and native americans.
There are plenty of ways to do it. If we exclude the shit that should be done regardless, free health, college, abolishing private prison, etc. What we should be looking at are stuff like interest free long term loans for small black businesses, tax deductions and larger refunds, great tax flow to black communities/education, etc. Ways to basically foster growth in the community without a flat "Here is money, now lets never hear about this again".
What's to stop 10s of millions of non-black Americans from changing their racial identification on the next census/government form so as to get some reparation monies? Which they will do. Hell I'm sure places like Fox News and 4chan will encourage conservative whites to do so to troll the libs.
Will the government force people to take DNA tests? Federal Tribes require that but they are dealing with tiny number of applicants. Large scale racial reparations won't work in a nation where ethnic/racial groups have become as mixed as they are in America.
Policies like banning private prisons, pardoning non-violent drug offenders, giving felons the right to vote, banning police carding, merging suburbs with cities, socialized healthcare, and a higher minimum wage will help African Americans and don't require something as messy as reparations.
Let's assume the heavy lifting is out of the way and they figured out who deserves it and how we'll pay for it.
I think it should be three things:
- A considerable grant for the down payment on a new home, with a low interest rate, should they want it. This can help them build wealth, as they've historically lagged behind in home ownership
- Tuition paid for community / state college for the first two years
- $20k paid to all who are 18 or older, probably have to stagger that across two years, $10k a year. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but an extra $10k a year over two years could be transformative for many young people - make it easier to pursue education, afford transportation to seek better employment farther away, etc
-In addition to the $20k, a retirement account will be opened with $5k in it to start. If one already has a retirement account, then they can opt to have the $5k placed into the existing one
I think it should be three things:
- A considerable grant for the down payment on a new home, with a low interest rate, should they want it. This can help them build wealth, as they've historically lagged behind in home ownership
- Tuition paid for community / state college for the first two years
- $20k paid to all who are 18 or older, probably have to stagger that across two years, $10k a year. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but an extra $10k a year over two years could be transformative for many young people - make it easier to pursue education, afford transportation to seek better employment farther away, etc
-In addition to the $20k, a retirement account will be opened with $5k in it to start. If one already has a retirement account, then they can opt to have the $5k placed into the existing one
Anything that's going to be done is going to have to be done so by largely a Jedi mind trick in this country so that's to fix or eliminate systems that disproportionately have targeted black men and women but also the poor regardless of race.
This would be a good start as would minor drug offenses, rework or eliminate three strike laws, release those who got the third strike for non-violent crime and weren't on parole for a serious offense, eliminate mandatory minimums, ban predatory court fees and fines that only really serve a purpose to raise money.
I'd say they could use some older censuses (censi?) to determine tomfoolery.
Yeah it's not perfect, people will slip through. Maybe there could be a claims department for this. It's better than vast swathes of white America doing Rachel Dolezal cosplay.
The thing is if you don't apply that same standard to everyone applying for reparations, some GOP state government will use this as an excuse to sue the federal government all the way to the Supreme Court for violating the Fourteenth Amendment. I don't doubt they'd lose the case ether.
We're talking about reparations while groups like the KKK and Neo-Nazis freely march the streets and protest against equality.
You gotta back this up about 243 years and fix it at the source.
You gotta back this up about 243 years and fix it at the source.
Yeah Native Americans need their kick backs also. They got the shit end of the stick right along side us
Land ownership is a huge deal. There's a ton of land in the middle of this country, give it up tax free. As a bonus the states wouldn't be bright red anymore.
That's not an option today, all it would do would make the richest people in the country even more powerful. They'll happily buy federal land that was given away for free to people who can't manage it and who will sensibly be prepared to sell it off immediately in order to invest it elsewhere. It would primarily increase corporate ownership of some of our most endangered places and centralize the already catastrophic system of land ownership on the major scale in America. Though this could be a good idea for Native American nations
A better way forward in terms of property ownership would include providing far better access to federal housing loans with low (or potentially zero) interest rates to poc and fighting back against NIMBY attitudes that prevent development of affordable housing stock.
Land is pretty worthless these days, now, real estate, that's big.
Give black families the apartments they currently rent and forcibly turn them into condos.
Give black families the apartments they currently rent and forcibly turn them into condos.
Fuck a loan, build in a stipulation it can't be sold for 40 years.
wouldn't everyone magically start making one dollar less than the cap then ?
This is all just hypotheticals, it will not happen when a racist institution is the one who determines this stuff. We need to eliminate the racist barriers first which would require complete revolution.
What's owed to ADOS (American Descendants of Slaves) is staggering in its amount. There needs to be a comprehensive study that examines the limit to which cash payouts can be made before it becomes economically unfeasible. This amount is in the trillions. I don't support government programs serving as substititutes for writing checks to ADOS. Keep your free healthcare and free tuition, programs that would overwhelmingly aid the very class of people who continue to benefit from the lack of reparations being made to ADOS. What was stolen from black America, through the forced labor of African slaves, was money. Any talk of programs and services is a deflection from what is owed my community. This country, from the government to the institutions within it who thrived off the capital generated by slavery, owes us cash money. The starting point of a discussion on how reparations are doled out must begin there or it is illegitimate.
Native Americans owned slaves, too. Native Americans participated in slave catching parties. Native Americans would raid communities of fugitive slaves or rat them out to slave catchers. Native Americans are not innocent when it comes to the American slave trade. It also bears mentioning that Native American tribes who received reparations by way of casinos have excommunicated black Native Americans so that they weren't able to receive any of the money.
Build up the community and infrastructure. Free education/health care. You just do not give people money that never works out well in the end.
But money is what's owed. When I steal from someone and have to pay back restitution, I'm not given an option by the judge to substitute something else for the amount of my theft. For centuries, money was whipped from the bodies of black slaves, not "community and infrastructure." Money.
Owed or not, that is not what would make peoples lives better. Free education, not having to pay taxes, and building up the community would.
Do you want them to be happier, have better lives or do you just want to throw money at the problem? Throwing money at problems does not have a good track record.
Or not? No, they are owed money for their labor, unless you believe Africans weren't enslaved for centuries? And it's not your decision to tell black descendants of slaves what would make their life better. This is a debt that is due our community. Your thoughts on what would make our community "better" aren't material to the objective reality of an unpaid debt.
In your opinion. Maybe there are black descendants of slaves who don't want to go to college. Maybe they have an idea for a business, have enough knowledge to manage it (information that doesn't require college enrollment to find and digest), and need capital to finance its launch.
I want the trillions of dollars owed to ADOS to be paid. I want the millions of acres of land that was stolen from free slaves to be returned. I want the wealth that was obliterated in multiple massacres of thriving black cities across America to be restored. All of that other stuff like free college and healthcare is a deflection from what is owed us.
Free heathcare and education for 3 generations, and first dibs on government jobs, including president.
Investing money in predominantly black communities, that have been missing it for decades while their schools became run down and insufficiently funded. Scholarships and funds for getting school material (not loans, but actual funds), universal healthcare (this should be for everyone), infrastructure, etc
I remember the last time Black men and women (and former slaves/children of slaves) had a prosperous community in the middle of the country.
Whatever it is, it shouldn't be something that can be undone as soon as republicans get back into power. Probably would be best if some structural changes were done in preparation of it too, since there's no doubt in my mind that cops would target black people even more to ensure as few folks get to make use of their reparations.
Irrespective of anything else, this is why I feel reparations should involve something that's "lump sum" than over time. It is much harder to get back money that is delivered and spent than it is to disrupt a gradual payout or policy, as we see with medical care.
I mean this entire discussion is pie in the sky anyway but there's a merit to lump sums: they're harder to undo. And in American politics you should always be wary of your policies being undone by a psychopathic opposition.
Right now, there are black voices working to convince black descendants of slaves to withhold their vote for the Democratic party until it comes to the table with a package of tangibles that directly addresses the problems in our community. I would say that once there's a critical mass of black people whose support is contingent on something approaching if not meeting reparations, you will see that shift.
There are no worst parts of a country, only what the people and government of that region make of it. Look at Israel, 70 years ago it was a shithole full of Malaria and poverty and now it's one of the most powerful economies in the world. If someone is given freedom and land, it will be what he makes of it.
I think you're confused, your proposal for land ownership and what I was referring to about housing ownership are totally different things.
Put simply, the land the US government manages out west is completely worthless unless you have a lot of it, as in 100s of thousands of acres of it. The average person cannot benefit from it. It's important that that land is not opened to the private market, even if in a charitable gesture such as this, because it would damage the government's ability to properly manage it, which is only going to become more important as climate change continues to shrink vulnerable flora/fauna habitats and arable land. It is of prime importance that that land stays complete in the public trust, and however flawed the government is, it's the only entity that can really be trusted to properly manage it at the scale necessary. Breaking it up for any purpose makes all of that land less effective and less able to be properly conserved, while actively making management practices more expensive and difficult. Mass land grabs ala the homestead act are an anachronistic concept that we cannot return to, in part because they were fundamentally flawed from the beginning, and in part because they would not be an effective way of redistributing wealth and bringing about justice
Housing property ownership is more viable and important because it's something that effects everyone's lives and because we already have laws and bureaucratic structures through which changes can be made at the local, state, and federal level. A loan with zero percent interest would essentially be a loan in name only (much easier to implement than just giving money out) and forgiveness for existing loans is easily possible within the current structure and powers of HUD and the executive branch.
LMAO I can picture it now, suddenly every rich person in the country has black kids just to claim reparations the tax break.