I already did that in my comment. In the form of a rhetorical question, you wrote, "So when you (and presumably others) opt to purchase only "fair-trade certified" coffee and/or chocolate, then you think the exploited workers are suddenly treated more equitably by their rapacious employers? "
I suppose you will claim it was only a question. If that were so, you would not have followed up with:
If so, good for you! Or do they more likely lose their jobs and their desperately poor families lose the income they brought in? Hmm...not so good for you. Same with the "slave labor" producing precious metals. Are they all real "slaves" or simply hyper-competitive prospectors and miners drawn, as through all history, by the chance of "striking it rich" or at least providing for their families (think reality TV series "Gold Rush")."
I quoted your assumption that I believed exploited workers are "suddenly treated more equitably" by their rapacious employers, as if I had written: "Go out and buy fair trade coffee and everything will be instantly wonderful."
Such childish comments are a waste of everyone's time.
Your logic is impeccable. We should continue to choose products by more highly exploited labor, and put plantations that expoli labor less out of business by refusing to buy fair trade.
It is simple. If people purchased only fair-trade coffee, coffee growers who don't abide by those standards would be required to change their practices. They wouldn't opt to go out of business. It's your snotty responses that merit the term "vanity."
A significant proportion of lottery winners are compelled to waste away their new-found fortunes on high living. When it's over, they can't afford the things they have bought, and can't fix the social upheaval their families have endured. Add in the concept of group-based qualification for the windfall, might not they be compelled to demand the payments continue, given the parameters of group membership (self-identified victimhood) haven't changed? Will they suddenly become introspective, and tell themselves they had their chance, but blew it? Or will the mentality behind that way of thinking need constant feeding?
Reparations will not be paid to anyone. The courts would strike it down as a violation of the equal protection clause. Violatins of the equal protection clause, such as the alleged violations claimed by those who want reparations, are enforced under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The statute of limitations for such individualized claims by people with standing to due are baded on state tort law. And the statute of limitations for any such reparations by people who could prove they were harmed by de jure racism have expired. Those are two obcious reasons why reparations are a delusion.
Even if reparations were not a delusion, it would be fair to disqualify anyone who has contributed to the enslavement of others. Anyone who has purchased chocolate that is not fair-trade certified has fueled the enslavement of children as young as six who are the property of black plantation owners in Western Africa. Most cocoa for chocolate is hevested by black slaves on those plantations. Anyone who has purchsed a piece of gold or silver jewlrey has perpetuated the slave labor that is used to mine such jewelry.
I suspect that everyone out there pretending to be a victim and demanding reparations has fueled the slave markets to provide them with these goods most of their lives.
These people should shut up and be forced to pay reparations to the people they have been victimizong all their lives by fueling the demand for slaves to harvest the cocoa for their chocolote and to mine the precious metals they wear as jewelry, among other things. If they eere really concerned with justice instead of self-aggrandizement, they would be ashamed to argue against this proposal.
Hispanics and Asians are in the back rooms now wheeling and dealing with the white political power brokers. The white man's buffer class to water down addressing the benign neglect of African Americans. Glenn Loury is enjoying his rewards from subordination to white conservatism (supremacy).
What are black conservatives conserving? For who? The meritorious manumission negro on the plantation was rewarded with freedom or valuables for saving Massa's life, by inventing things that improved Massa's wealth ( I.e., Jack Daniels Whiskey) or snitched on other slaves who planned escapes or rebellions. The meritorious transmission negro has been an American nightmare for black folks.
Imagine Black folks courageously coming together and creating their independent political party operating on a vigorous quid pro quo (something for something). Real politics is quid pro quo. The democratic party just shuffles the chairs on a sinking ship to play black folks for votes that mostly favor LBGTQ and undocumented immigrants. The GOP (conservatives) just sinks the ship with old tired-out lip service.
These horizontal issues do not directly improve the life of African Americans. Intersecting horizontal issues with vertical issues is self-defeating for blacks.
Imagine most blacks boycotting a major national election to get the point through.
At what point can we admit this is as good as it gets.
Hungry school kids. 60 years and over 20 trillion dollars later, and someone can't boil water to make oatmeal.
Massive expenditures in time and labor for pre-school programs that are proven to be no advantage after the 3rd grade.
Great progress in grade inflation.
Everytime there are great strides in boosting school achievement, someone goes to jail for fraud.
The ability to graduate from high school with a 1.3 GPA and not be able to read.
Separate graduating ceremonies for black and whites at Berkeley.
The black one looked like a minstrel show.
When can we admit this horse can't run any faster. No amount of well paid whippers and horse whisperers can get it to move any faster. This is as good as it gets. Deal with it.
The California reparations commission has come up with a figure of over 1 million $ for each black citizen in California, but looking at median household wealth by the race categories used, the Federal Reserve in 2019 found white families had a median wealth of $188,200, compared to $24,100 for Black families, and $36,100 for Hispanic families. By my math, to make things "even" would require payments of $164,100 each, or $188,200 - $24,100, after taxes. Then there's another elephant in the room and that's females of all colors. By the pro-reparations logic, all women should be getting reparations for what their female foremothers experienced due to being excluded from jobs and credit. Black women then get double reparations. I'm all for lawsuits over any Jim Crow racist policy that can be brought to court, but no person today is owed anything for the hard life someone had under slavery.
Reparations would be funded by taxes. The recipients would be purely speculative. This is an unconstitutional taking of the property of all Americans. Pandora’s box would be thrown wide open for unimaginable claims against the public fisc.
Reparations is another example of how the Democrats propose to fix racism by, in fact, creating racial divisions (as Glenn points out - between white and black working classes). Progressive ideologies are ironic in this way. They fight racist practices by self-fulfilling them.
Thanks for posting this segment of the conversation again. When I first listened, I was with Team Loury, so to speak, when he gave the left case against reparations. Reading it again, I am still there with him. A few words about myself may help clarify my stance. I am on the left, have been my entire adult life, same age as Dr. Loury. I was born and have lived my entire life in Appalachia, my county is one of the poorest in my state. There are black people here, not in large numbers, but many of them whose families have been here for generations. Imagine how it would be if, in such an impoverished region, reparations were made to our black residents, but nothing to their equally indigent neighbors. I don't want to imagine the reaction.
There is another concern of mine that I haven't heard addressed. On a previous show, John McWhorter remarked that his children are "mutts", meaning of mixed race. We have a number of "mutts" here, including folks with Native American, black, and white ancestries, even some Melungeons. Whatever the form or amount reparations take, do each of these folks get a full share? Or will they have to take DNA tests to determine percentages to be received? I've done AncestryDNA, and don't qualify for anything, don't need anything either. But I would like to see, and I champion, improvements in the lives of many of my neighbors. My fear is that the call for reparations is divisive and inimical to that objective.
Reparations is the current iteration of a Jesse Jackson shakedown. “We’re going to picket your office or home until you pay us.” Blackmail never ends until is ceases to work. Injustice is never justice and will never promote justice.
Glenn is spot on with his analysis; from both political sides. Money dropped from helicopters has never been successful in changing character whether it is called welfare or reparations. The solution to disfunction is far more difficult than writing a check.
Has anyone addressed the question of what happens when people who don’t know how to handle money get a bunch of money?
"It has to be, “Okay, problem solved. We have atoned for the racism of the past,..." (John McWhorter)
I think it is correct for John McW to say that that white peoples' support for reparations is based on a felt need to atone for alleged past sins. If the proposal were being sold as part of the planned transformation of our current economic system into Maoist socialism, how many white people would go along with it? If the white population of the U.S. had not been culturally indoctrinated into religious beliefs about sin/guilt/confession/atonement, how many would sign on for reparations? If reparations are not seen as "atonement," how would that affect the expectations that we do it once only?
If reparations are undertaken from a more rational perspective, as an attempt to propel the black population up the socioeconomic ladder, why would we assume that this intervention would yield the desired result? I think that "fixing" the economic problems being experienced by many black Americans would require generations of well crafted efforts of various sorts, mostly originating from within black communities.
I already did that in my comment. In the form of a rhetorical question, you wrote, "So when you (and presumably others) opt to purchase only "fair-trade certified" coffee and/or chocolate, then you think the exploited workers are suddenly treated more equitably by their rapacious employers? "
I suppose you will claim it was only a question. If that were so, you would not have followed up with:
If so, good for you! Or do they more likely lose their jobs and their desperately poor families lose the income they brought in? Hmm...not so good for you. Same with the "slave labor" producing precious metals. Are they all real "slaves" or simply hyper-competitive prospectors and miners drawn, as through all history, by the chance of "striking it rich" or at least providing for their families (think reality TV series "Gold Rush")."
I quoted your assumption that I believed exploited workers are "suddenly treated more equitably" by their rapacious employers, as if I had written: "Go out and buy fair trade coffee and everything will be instantly wonderful."
Such childish comments are a waste of everyone's time.
Your logic is impeccable. We should continue to choose products by more highly exploited labor, and put plantations that expoli labor less out of business by refusing to buy fair trade.
It is simple. If people purchased only fair-trade coffee, coffee growers who don't abide by those standards would be required to change their practices. They wouldn't opt to go out of business. It's your snotty responses that merit the term "vanity."
A significant proportion of lottery winners are compelled to waste away their new-found fortunes on high living. When it's over, they can't afford the things they have bought, and can't fix the social upheaval their families have endured. Add in the concept of group-based qualification for the windfall, might not they be compelled to demand the payments continue, given the parameters of group membership (self-identified victimhood) haven't changed? Will they suddenly become introspective, and tell themselves they had their chance, but blew it? Or will the mentality behind that way of thinking need constant feeding?
Reparations will not be paid to anyone. The courts would strike it down as a violation of the equal protection clause. Violatins of the equal protection clause, such as the alleged violations claimed by those who want reparations, are enforced under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The statute of limitations for such individualized claims by people with standing to due are baded on state tort law. And the statute of limitations for any such reparations by people who could prove they were harmed by de jure racism have expired. Those are two obcious reasons why reparations are a delusion.
Even if reparations were not a delusion, it would be fair to disqualify anyone who has contributed to the enslavement of others. Anyone who has purchased chocolate that is not fair-trade certified has fueled the enslavement of children as young as six who are the property of black plantation owners in Western Africa. Most cocoa for chocolate is hevested by black slaves on those plantations. Anyone who has purchsed a piece of gold or silver jewlrey has perpetuated the slave labor that is used to mine such jewelry.
I suspect that everyone out there pretending to be a victim and demanding reparations has fueled the slave markets to provide them with these goods most of their lives.
These people should shut up and be forced to pay reparations to the people they have been victimizong all their lives by fueling the demand for slaves to harvest the cocoa for their chocolote and to mine the precious metals they wear as jewelry, among other things. If they eere really concerned with justice instead of self-aggrandizement, they would be ashamed to argue against this proposal.
Hispanics and Asians are in the back rooms now wheeling and dealing with the white political power brokers. The white man's buffer class to water down addressing the benign neglect of African Americans. Glenn Loury is enjoying his rewards from subordination to white conservatism (supremacy).
What are black conservatives conserving? For who? The meritorious manumission negro on the plantation was rewarded with freedom or valuables for saving Massa's life, by inventing things that improved Massa's wealth ( I.e., Jack Daniels Whiskey) or snitched on other slaves who planned escapes or rebellions. The meritorious transmission negro has been an American nightmare for black folks.
Imagine Black folks courageously coming together and creating their independent political party operating on a vigorous quid pro quo (something for something). Real politics is quid pro quo. The democratic party just shuffles the chairs on a sinking ship to play black folks for votes that mostly favor LBGTQ and undocumented immigrants. The GOP (conservatives) just sinks the ship with old tired-out lip service.
These horizontal issues do not directly improve the life of African Americans. Intersecting horizontal issues with vertical issues is self-defeating for blacks.
Imagine most blacks boycotting a major national election to get the point through.
At what point can we admit this is as good as it gets.
Hungry school kids. 60 years and over 20 trillion dollars later, and someone can't boil water to make oatmeal.
Massive expenditures in time and labor for pre-school programs that are proven to be no advantage after the 3rd grade.
Great progress in grade inflation.
Everytime there are great strides in boosting school achievement, someone goes to jail for fraud.
The ability to graduate from high school with a 1.3 GPA and not be able to read.
Separate graduating ceremonies for black and whites at Berkeley.
The black one looked like a minstrel show.
When can we admit this horse can't run any faster. No amount of well paid whippers and horse whisperers can get it to move any faster. This is as good as it gets. Deal with it.
The California reparations commission has come up with a figure of over 1 million $ for each black citizen in California, but looking at median household wealth by the race categories used, the Federal Reserve in 2019 found white families had a median wealth of $188,200, compared to $24,100 for Black families, and $36,100 for Hispanic families. By my math, to make things "even" would require payments of $164,100 each, or $188,200 - $24,100, after taxes. Then there's another elephant in the room and that's females of all colors. By the pro-reparations logic, all women should be getting reparations for what their female foremothers experienced due to being excluded from jobs and credit. Black women then get double reparations. I'm all for lawsuits over any Jim Crow racist policy that can be brought to court, but no person today is owed anything for the hard life someone had under slavery.
https://manhattan.institute/article/50-years-of-blaming-everything-on-racism
Thank you Glenn and John, as always. This, too, is a fact-based assessment of the situation.
Reparations would be funded by taxes. The recipients would be purely speculative. This is an unconstitutional taking of the property of all Americans. Pandora’s box would be thrown wide open for unimaginable claims against the public fisc.
Reparations is another example of how the Democrats propose to fix racism by, in fact, creating racial divisions (as Glenn points out - between white and black working classes). Progressive ideologies are ironic in this way. They fight racist practices by self-fulfilling them.
Thanks for posting this segment of the conversation again. When I first listened, I was with Team Loury, so to speak, when he gave the left case against reparations. Reading it again, I am still there with him. A few words about myself may help clarify my stance. I am on the left, have been my entire adult life, same age as Dr. Loury. I was born and have lived my entire life in Appalachia, my county is one of the poorest in my state. There are black people here, not in large numbers, but many of them whose families have been here for generations. Imagine how it would be if, in such an impoverished region, reparations were made to our black residents, but nothing to their equally indigent neighbors. I don't want to imagine the reaction.
There is another concern of mine that I haven't heard addressed. On a previous show, John McWhorter remarked that his children are "mutts", meaning of mixed race. We have a number of "mutts" here, including folks with Native American, black, and white ancestries, even some Melungeons. Whatever the form or amount reparations take, do each of these folks get a full share? Or will they have to take DNA tests to determine percentages to be received? I've done AncestryDNA, and don't qualify for anything, don't need anything either. But I would like to see, and I champion, improvements in the lives of many of my neighbors. My fear is that the call for reparations is divisive and inimical to that objective.
Reparations is the current iteration of a Jesse Jackson shakedown. “We’re going to picket your office or home until you pay us.” Blackmail never ends until is ceases to work. Injustice is never justice and will never promote justice.
Glenn is spot on with his analysis; from both political sides. Money dropped from helicopters has never been successful in changing character whether it is called welfare or reparations. The solution to disfunction is far more difficult than writing a check.
Has anyone addressed the question of what happens when people who don’t know how to handle money get a bunch of money?
"It has to be, “Okay, problem solved. We have atoned for the racism of the past,..." (John McWhorter)
I think it is correct for John McW to say that that white peoples' support for reparations is based on a felt need to atone for alleged past sins. If the proposal were being sold as part of the planned transformation of our current economic system into Maoist socialism, how many white people would go along with it? If the white population of the U.S. had not been culturally indoctrinated into religious beliefs about sin/guilt/confession/atonement, how many would sign on for reparations? If reparations are not seen as "atonement," how would that affect the expectations that we do it once only?
If reparations are undertaken from a more rational perspective, as an attempt to propel the black population up the socioeconomic ladder, why would we assume that this intervention would yield the desired result? I think that "fixing" the economic problems being experienced by many black Americans would require generations of well crafted efforts of various sorts, mostly originating from within black communities.