Go to Editormum's Oddments
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- Go to Some Observations on Racism and Reparations
I addressed this subject ealier this month...
Go to Slavery Reparations? GET REAL!
And, MHW inferred that I perhaps though that Africans could not prosper anywhere other than in a western society. After much reflection, I have not been able to identify a single example of a country that is predominantley governed by Africans that is prospering. Infact, with Haiti enjoying the current headlines, most of them are still embroiled in civil strife with attrocities transpiring multiple times daily.
Before one refers to South Africa as a gem of civilization, after Nelson Mandela took over the government in that country, whites (men and women alike) had to begin carring side-arms for protection due to the lawlessness. And the black-on-black, black-on-white violence there continues in the townships. As for my basis for this ascertation, I was working in Luxembourg at the time and we had agents working for our company in South Africa. The decay of that society is well-documented. Please research before one rebuts this claim.
posted by
Tristan57
on February 28, 2004 at 9:10 AM
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Correction
I meant to type "creation of a Jewish state as a reparation"
PS: I am neither Jewish nor Zionist, thank y'all.
posted by
majroj
on February 28, 2004 at 8:32 AM
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America as a state has not paid reparations per se to Holocaust survivors
I reiterate "per se". There have been international legal efforts to get back money and loot which were accumulated through the benefit of the European Jewish Holocaust to the Nazis and others in Europe. One might view the creation and defense of Isreal as a reparations, except that it was really a means to solve the terrifically confused state of the displaced persons the Jews had become after WWII, and many who still harbored anti-Semitic thought were glad to be rid of them; in fact, when it came to the actual creation of a Jewish state, rather than just dumping them into the Palestine, European states resisted and a guerrila/terrorist war occurred with the Zionist movement against the British and then the locals.
posted by
majroj
on February 28, 2004 at 8:31 AM
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Mike...
sorry if I was unclear. Your post simply brought a number of things to mind that I wanted to express and seek feedback on. That happens to me a lot. I realize that you didn't mention reparations, but where I live, every time someone starts talking about race relations, the next thing out of their mouth is reparations. I was at work yesterday, and couldn't fully get all my thoughts down without stealing too much time from my employer. I am going to try to update a bit more on the topic in the next couple of days. Thanks for your comments, and do keep watching for my next pile o' queries. 
posted by
editormum
on February 28, 2004 at 7:46 AM
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Response to Oddments Post from "Understanding the Race Issue" Blog
Good morning, afternoon, or evening, whichever time you recieve this comment. I believe that the Oddment post was the one the you referred to in your comment to me about my "Race Issue" Post. If so, let me say that your writing is superb. You express your thoughts well and you use logic and reasoning, which is important. I agreed with many of your points. I wish that I could have copied and pasted them into this response, which would have allowed me to address each one specifically. Since I don't have that option, I will do my best to go off of memory.
There is no doubt that you are highly intelligent and reasonable, so I am hoping to continue an ongoing dialogue with you regarding race and other issues. I am a 36 your old christian male. As I recollect you started off by saying that you had dated black men in the past and didn't care what people thought about it. That is good to hear. That means that you had the guts to stand up for whatever you believe.
You followed up by stating that you didn't feel that you had any responsibility for the plight of African Americans, partly because of the fact that your ancestors had it rough in the South as well and worked very hard just to eek out a living. I agree that whites don't have responsibility for the wrongs and injustices of the past, but for you to compare the difficult plight that your ancestors had and the difficulty that other immigrants had in America to that of the slaves and children is slaves is incompehensible. There is no comparison.
I have to go into all of the details to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, it would not be difficult to do. But, I am not going to go into that detail because that was not the point of my original post in any shape, form or fashion. If you thought it was than either you missed the point, or I didn't lay it out appropriately. I tend to think that you missed the point because you spent a large portion of your post discussing reparations and not once in my post did I even mention reparations. But, just for you information the United States did pay reparations to the Jews for a Holocaust that they weren't even responsible for. Picture that.
Personally, I don't feel that reparations for African Americans are feasible right now. Although I do think they are deserved, with the mindset that many African Americans have right now reperations would not make much of a difference in our lives. But, as I said, I never mentioned them once and that was not the point at all.
The point was to use the example of how the long term devastation that a young person can suffer from as a result of a traumatic experience in their childhood, compares to the long term devastation that a race can suffer from as a result of traumatic experiences in it's development. The post was meant to give people a look into the hypocrisy of our country and show people how much of an effect that slavery and decades of oppression has had on African American's as a whole. If an animal has been caged his whole life, even when you remove the cage and open the door, the animal will oftentimes remain in the cage because that is the only thing that he knows. When the spirit is broken the fight is gone.
Many African Americans don't have the will, understanding, or desire to take advantage of the opportunities that you spoke of because the spirits of the ancestors were broken, which didn't allow them to pass the right spirit down to their children, which made it impossible for the following generations to ever understand how to be all they could be.
There is so much to say on this. I would like the opportunity to address each and every one of your questions, critiques, adversarial points, etc. Please email me when you have a chance at AndersonSMC@Aol.com. Based on the intelligence that I believe that you have, I am sure that we can come to a common ground. But, the long and short of the post had nothing to do with reparations. It had to do with opening the door to an understanding of why many of us are the way that we are and think the way that we think. Because we grew up in America and were forced to assimilate so to speak, most of us understand how and why white people think the way they do. Many of you have no idea why we think the way that we do. When we begin to understand each other more, we have a better chance of coming together and making the world a better place.
Take Care and God Bless
Mike
AndersonSMC@Aol.com
posted by
Mikey_Mike
on February 27, 2004 at 10:43 PM
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Interned Japanese-Americans were paid reparations not too long ago.
They received about $20,000 each, according to the accounts I read. Many had died, many didn't want to claim the money. The $20,000 was a token amount to each versus their real loss, but it signified that we knew better at the time, and that the "relocation" of Japanese Americans was as much due to overtly racist press and politics on the west coast as it was to any security considerations.
However, I take your point. My spin on it is that slavery (which by the way exists today in the U.S. and especially abroad) was felt to be a relatively normal process in the times we are speaking of, despite the enlightened qualms of many.
posted by
majroj
on February 27, 2004 at 1:13 PM
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