California increases proposed reparation payments to $360K per person | Hacker News Reader

California increases proposed reparation payments to $360K per person

wlos.com

26 pointsdecremental53 comments

As with any social justice topic, I always ask: what is the end game? When does the injustice stop? When will we be happy?

If you can't provide an answer, then I am hesitant to buy in. If you can provide an answer, then it signals to me that you are fighting to solve a clear problem, one for which there is a clear and achievable solution, and so my time and effort are worth contributing.

So, SJWs of HN: would a payment of 360K to every black person with slave lineage be enough? Would we be done with race issues and finally able to move on to other problems? If yes, I'm in and I'll even donate to fund the reparations (though I disagree with the concept, personally). But if no, then what does this achieve and how would it be (were it to actually happen) anything other than a powerful political group voting themselves money straight from the treasury?

Wow, this is a great way to point out the logical inconsistencies behind many of these feel-good social justice topics. Going to remember this tactic.

>would a payment of 360K to every black person with slave lineage be enough? Would we be done with race issues and finally able to move on to other problems?

Its a debt owed, not a favor. Nobody from the harmed group will owe anyone anything in return.

Since the payment was delayed and robbery was a continual and extended practice of the dominant society in partnership with the local, state, and federal governments, any additional verifiable claim they make for damages must be considered and if valid, they must be compensated for.

The benefit of paying a hefty penalty for massive crimes against fellow citizens, is nobody will feel comfortable repeating the crimes on your family or mine in the future when they know the high price they will pay.

> Nobody from the harmed group will owe anyone anything in return.

So is that a yes or a no? Come on give me a straight answer. Does this even the scales of justice?

>So is that a yes or a no?

Is what a "yes or no"? The question isnt clear.

Which question isn’t clear?

I’ve always thought reparations have to be balanced against all of the benefits folks have gained from being born in the US in the 20th/21st century vs being born in Liberia (for example). Any economic help (unemployment, food stamps, medicare, etc), education differences and benefits, access and use of better(?) infrastructure, and just the benefits of upward mobility that some (definitely not all) have enjoyed here. Something a little more dicey to consider is costs of incarceration. In the end, it’s not like descendants of slaves haven’t benefitted at all from being born in the US. Having said all of that though, there are HUGE systemic problems, racism, and inequalities that all minorities face here. I’m just not sure reparations is the fix.

>I’ve always thought reparations have to be balanced against all of the benefits folks have gained from being born in the US in the 20th/21st century

The problem is a large % of the enslaved are descendants of people that were here before the US existed (either through the slave trade or indigenous, eg Seminoles), they are as foundational if not more foundational than the so called founding fathers.

They not only built the country but also had generations of valuable labor stolen. Every US citizen gains from their service, the reverse is hardly true.

It's like being a day 0 investor in Amazon and not being able to exercise trillions of dollars in options purely because Bezos doesnt like your skin color. How much do we deduct from what you are owed because of the convenience 2-day Amazon shipping gave you?

Indigenous people did not found America in any meaningful sense of the word. I’m not saying they weren’t royally fucked out of land and labor. But lets not invent nonsense because we can’t recognize the great achievement of the founding fathers (many of whom were against slavery btw).

>Indigenous people did not found America in any meaningful sense of the word.

Thats your opinion. The descendants of the people we are discussing say they did build the foundation and because their family investment of intellectual and sweat equity is sizable (conservative estimates are ~2 trillion hours of stolen labor) their case is not easy to dismiss.

I’m not convinced. What about all of my ancestors that got paid less than inflation adjusted minimum wage? Who were killed in wars fighting to keep the country free? Lots of people benefit from their work, so do I get a slice of the pie? What about the natives who were earlier displaced by other natives (wars between American Indians). Do we owe their descendants as well? And why does the distinction of before or after the US existed as a nation matter?

Lots of people (black, white, whatever) have been treated unfairly in the past. It’s not possible or reasonable to go down that road. Reparations are too myopic in my view.

Let’s fix educational inequality. We can do that. Fixing multi-generational cultural problems? Not sure, but giving people money is not the answer.

>whatabout

Make a compelling and valid claim that the US damaged you or stole from you and you may be entitled to collect payment for damages.

US slave owners, Jewish holocaust survivors, and Japanese WWII internment camp victims were all paid reparations.

The story of the labor and opportunity stolen from the US black enslaved is clear and the reparations claim easy to validate, YMMV for the separate harder to prove whatabout claims you say exist.

So I have to prove what was stolen from ME, but others have to prove what was stolen from people 2-8 generations back?

Notice how your examples of reparations are to those who were directly harmed, which seems fair. Saying I owe someone for what our great-great-great-great-grandfathers did to their great-great-great-great-grandfathers?

>So I have to prove what was stolen from ME

The nitpick falls flat since brevity was the objective of my statement. "You and/or your ancestors" works. As long as the state that damaged your family still exists, a claim can be made.

Yours is also a weak counter because the precedent is already set in similar cases. Many Jewish reparations recipients were never in concentration camps but their relatives and/or descendants could prove the damages.

You still haven't answered the question…

So California, a state where slavery was never legal, is going to tax its citizens, many of whom were not in the country when slavery was legal in the south, and call it justice?

America is very sick and likes performative art like this instead of actually helping people. Last I checked there's plenty of homeless people (of all ethnicities) who could use some real help in California.

Future generations are going to get a real kick out of how sick it is on multiple levels.

California: hey this drug addicted mentally ill homeless guy says the only way to help him is to make it easier to do drugs, shoplift, and poop on the streets. I think we should give it a try!

The article talks specifically for California's sins related to Black slaves descendants -- using terminology in the article.

I am also a bit confused. I had the impression that California never allowed slaves.

I found this https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/historic-california-law...

"California was founded as a free state, or a state where slavery was illegal, in 1850, yet several laws made significant allowances for residents to retain enslaved people so long as they lived in California temporarily or bought the slaves before statehood."

But I don't see any specific legal references. And even then the article on the decision of the task force is hand wavy at best. So there were loopholes, but what is the extent and do the descendants have to somehow prove their ancestors lived in California?

I mean thumbs up, but yeah, my ancestors were slaves and had to fight for their freedom, so where does California stand on that by this reasoning?

>a state where slavery was never legal

My understanding is California had massive slave plantations some run by the mormon church, and the state was a major beneficiary of land confiscation among other things.

>many of whom were not in the country when slavery was legal

The country has a massive outstanding debt to uncompensated laborers that built the economic foundation. You benefit from that labor upon arrival in the US. If you do not want to pay the debt for the privilige of being in the US, the easiest method is to turn in your passport and leave the country.

You need to check your source of facts.

>You need to check your source of facts.

The facts are clear and pretty well documented. Here is the story of one such case...

Biddy Mason was one of the richest people in California. She had to sue for her freedom from Mormon slavers and eventually became a famous real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist.

"Biddy was among a number of enslaved people in the San Bernardino settlement. As part of the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state. Nevertheless, some migrants from the South, including Robert Smith, continued to bring enslaved people into the state. California's courts routinely ruled against the freedom claims of enslaved African Americans in support of slave owners" [0]

"Slaveholders occupied the upper echelons of the Mormon hierarchy in San Bernardino....When Mormon slaveholders crossed the border into California, they entered a free state. California’s "Constitution of 1850 outlawed slavery, but its Legislature and courts, dominated by migrants from the South, defended coercive labor practices in the state. Well into the 1850s, the slaveholders of San Bernardino operated openly, free from legal interference." [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biddy_Mason

[1] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-19/san-bernard...

> When reached for comment the task force told TND that "no final recommendations or financial reparations have been finalized or presented yet to the California Legislature."

Which makes this article basically just rage bait.

At its peak 1.5% of the population in the US had slaves of all kinds Native, White, Black, Asian. Most objected as it took jobs away. California in particular didn't have slaves, and rejected slavery before it was even part of the union.

This is not "California" as a whole. This is some commission with no power except to make recommendations, which was hastily founded in June 2020... yeah. These proposals have zero chance of becoming law.

Quite frankly, shame on these people in the commission, because this does nothing but create a giant mismatch between expectations and reality, and it will only end with people getting pissed off at each other.

The commission was created by legislation authored by California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. It's not like this is some random group of academics with no political power.

I agree that it has little chance of becoming law, though. And if Democrat machine politicians and true believers like Shirley Weber somehow push this through it'd be one of the few things that could make the Republican party viable again in California.

We ought not to get complacent, though. It's an unworkable policy with a litany of obvious problems and it would be a catastrophe for California if it passed. Better to speak out now than complain later about how it all went wrong.

Apparently they might as well add a pony, too.

Why not suggest something workable like excluding them from income taxes for life?

I guess they figured that would cost them more. Note that I am guessing they are going to tax that 360k.

Reparation for what you might ask? For the descendants of Slaves. Maybe slave should be in the title to save clicks.

I don’t think any American would be asking “for what.” Reparations mean one thing here.

HN isn't only for Americans

But California is

Idk plenty of Irish we’re slaves.

Disallowed from speaking their language, illegal to own land, landlords took all their food, etc.

Could also be for the Japanese during WWII who were shipped off to camps for months to years. Land taken; etc.

Could easily be for them /s

True partially. There are reparations related to WWII. In fact if you mostly refer to reparations you usually refer to WWII in Europe.

But specifically to California and WWII: Japanese Americans received reparations for the internment. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/03/24/820181127...

You can email the mods these kinds of suggestions.

Jeez. Why did you write it like that? The title is from the article (minus, "report says") and the way you've written your comment is unnecessarily inflammatory.

Sorry if I've offended. I'm not American and I had no idea what the reparations were for until I clicked.

It’s a fair question. There are tons of other things called reparations here too.

Is it April 1st?

Can we just pave the streets please?

If the point of this is to correct the disadvantages faced by ancestors which cascade through the generations then it should be determined by number of ancestors not a single qualifying ancestor. If I am 2% African American 98% white, and my 2% ancestor was a slave, do I get the same as someone who the majority of their ancestors from that period were slaves? Did our ancestors face the same amount of disadvantages?

I think the historically accepted ratio is 3/5

I believe an enslaved ancestor has to be on a certain census and you have to identify as black on government documents.

The 2% claim wont work under these rules.

Why not make the reparations: Free College, More funding for schools in predominantly African American neighborhoods, to raise the quality, and guaranteed rental assistance when needed. In ensures more people get the things they need, than a one time windfall, it also gives upward mobility in the long-term.

That might be a more appropriate action for California, which plays only a very small part in the overall issue of slavery. It's not really appropriate for them to be discussing cash reparations, but they are responsible for organizing their state laws for the best overall welfare of all its citizens.

At a national level, however, cash would be better than telling people what they need. The problem of reparations is a national issue. Slavery was nationally legal, and people all over the country benefitted from the trade. It was up to the nation to ban slavery, and it took much too long to do so. Even after it did, it allowed numerous abuses of the former slaves and their descendants.

That is a debt, moral and financial, owed by the nation. And the best way to pay it is with money, and let them figure out how to spend it. We might also couple that with local measures designed to improve the welfare of all citizens -- which may include targeting people who have had long historical disadvantages that not even cash reparations can fix.

This might be worth it if it meant we could in return end the racialized government subsidy systems that are in place. Of course, that wouldn't happen. After all the money is spent and nothing has changed there will just be calls for more reparations.

>After all the money is spent and nothing has changed there will just be calls for more reparations.

If the future claims of damages are valid, they must be paid and justice must be served.

One side effect of this is that it will make housing even more unaffordable in the Bay and California as there will be a surge in demand.

They should give their land back to Mexico.

Spain really ought to be paying reparations to those Aztecs…

And aztecs should be paying reparations to the people whose skulls they used for their aztec basketball!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame

I'm not sure I understand why.

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