Retribution for Slavery or Racism? Can this even be done?

[The Reality Salesman01]

Boo yah! That's what I'm saying! Fuck all this categorical BULLSHIT!

What the fuck does skin color have to do with how murder is defined?!! You can kill somebody legally...and be a racist! It doesn't change a damn thing!

[Rahul]

My ancestors are Italian and German. They weren't even in America during slavery.

Well I found a couple skeletons in my closet. Not any big plantation owners but I found a grand total of three ancestors that had a slave or two. No more than that. Most of my ancestors were poor dirt farmers or preachers.

But heck both the president and his wife are both also descended from slave owners. You can look up their family trees online really easy.

Most any American that has family here from more than 200 years ago is probably going to find at least one or two of those. Including a huge percentage of African-Americans that have a slave-owner for an ancestor.

Interesting fact of the day...

Hold on, let me dig this up out of my harddrive...

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Of the 228 million white people in the US, 74 million have some form of African ancestry, from less than 2% to more than 15%. There are only 40 million people who call themselves 'African American' although 114 million+ Americans actually have African ancestry.

This would mean the majority of the descendants of African slaves in the USA today are white.

It appears that 70 percent of whites have no African ancestors. Among the 30 percent who do, the black admixture is around 2.3 percent, which would be like having about three black ancestors out of those 128.

This genetic database is restricted to adults. Black-white married couples quadrupled in number between the 1960 Census and 1990 Census, so the admixture rates among children are no doubt higher than among adults.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2002/05/08/A...z1gdXPCtdg
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[My imaginary friend is GOD]

Wrong, everyone has African ancestors. Scientific Adam and Eve were from Africa.

[Rahul]

Wrong, everyone has African ancestors. Scientific Adam and Eve were from Africa.

*rolls eyes* Well duh. We're African Apes, futile. It's the cradle of the human species.

You can take what I said in that post to mean RECENT african ancestors. Which most people will do naturally.

[muttering]Freaking overly exact atheists. There's always one...[/muttering]

[The Reality Salesman01]

Lol...kinda like when people say "Then technically rocks and dogs are Atheists, since they don't have a belief in Gods."

-yeah...and they're also single in the sense that they're not married. Will I need to specify the exact group of nouns I am referring to from here on out, or can I assume we'll be making more mature inferences in conversations to come?

[Mister Agenda]

The farthest back I can go with my ancestry is a man named Pleasant Easely who lived in SC in the 1700s and migrated west. When I moved to SC, I did not know I had any ancestors here. From his journal, he found slavery detestable, but it's mentioned in reference to a slave-owning uncle so maybe I do have a slave-owning ancestor. If so, it's not possible for me to make reparations for his or her crimes; or make things right for the victims, who are dead.

However, if all racism against descendants of slaves were ended instantly, today, it would take many decades for them to achieve a level playing field economically. Past discrimination has left them poor in the generational assets the majority of American whites have. I'm not one of them, my family was very poor, but it's not unusual for young white Americans to be given all sorts of assistance that is harder for young black Americans to come by; like being given a car, or a home (or given substantial assistance in purchasing a home), or having your education paid for. OK, I did get the car ($300 1970 Mercury Comet).

This disparity was not arrived at justly, so it behooves us as a nation to correct it. And it's not enough to just throw money in the general direction of the disadvantaged, programs need to work and be cost-effective, and the money re-purposed into some other method if it doesn't work or stops working. Much better K-12 education would be a good start. No one should have to try to get their kid into a 'white school' for a better education.

[Something completely different]

The term that used to exist for that is Mulatto. Not a word considered in vogue anymore.

Personally I think the reason why everyone only thinks of him as black and only black usually is from the old days of "One Drop Rule".

During the Jim Crow era each state had definitions for whether you were black or not depending on how many black ancestors you had. Some said if you were at least 1/8th black you were considered black. Others said 1/16th.

However, under all of these Zimmerman would have been considered black. But our media doesn't even consider him hispanic most of the time. Only white.

This shit's getting confusing.

I say we scrap all of the terms altogether.

Yes. And then we shall all sit arround a campfire and sing songs and be happy for ever............

Your countries legal framework already does not recognise the color of someones skin, yet there is still social discrimination based on race.
To simply state - there will be no racism if it is not acknowleged - is to simply turn arround and look into a different direction whilest it will almoust certainly continue.

Not acknowleging a problem is not a way of solving it.

[The Reality Salesman01]

@Germans

That's true. No argument there. I would say that alone is not a solution. I see no reason why we can't put a stop to special treatment for being of a certain race though. Denial is no cure for racism, but neither is discrimination and preferential treatment. There's gotta be a different way man!

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This oppression will not stand, man! The dude does not oblige!

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Whatever the disparity is now, the kids today, have nothing to do with it. All kids should have the same opportunities afforded to them on the grounds that they are American kids. Adjustments should not be made based on the likelihood of a skin-based lucky break. That's horse-shit. If there's a school to go to, everyone should be eligible. The rest of that "white school/black school" stuff can be directed at somebody else's ears. Throw all skin-color based charities out the window. They don't help any causes. They reinforce an attitude of entitlement of a debt not owed. It's absurd.

[Something completely different]

@Germans

That's true. No argument there. I would say that alone is not a solution. I see no reason why we can't put a stop to special treatment for being of a certain race though. Denial is no cure for racism, but neither is discrimination and preferential treatment. There's gotta be a different way man!

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This oppression will not stand, man! The dude does not oblige!

Neither do I propose "special treatment".

What I critizise mostly is this culture of historic revisionism which combined with an ignorance for it can have ugly results.
Rick Perry declared Sam Houston a abolishonist although he was a slave owner, Bachmann declared the founding fathers to have abolished slavery and the President of the NRA declares the US civil war to be a war "of northern agression". When observing things like these - a collective push by a political movement to erradicate a dark chapter of history, I do understand how minorities can feel threatened and will demand special treatment.
So the only way out of such a social dillema is to effectively combat the racism which initiated this vicious cicle of blaming each other.
Yet what members here have proposed so far is to ignore that culture of historic revisionism and to trust that through legal equality racial discrimination will magicaly go away.
And one member actualy blamed black people.

[The Reality Salesman01]

It's a hard problem to resolve (understatement of the century). Given the predisposed notions of your average person, the biases that plague them and the ever-growing-lazy-give-me-selfish-irrational attitude of Americans in general, it looks to be an unlikely problem to resolve. We'll find resolution to racism as soon as we get everyone to agree on religion.