Historical Guilt and Reparations

I think the idea that your people/ancestors/country is uniquely horrible is itself a kind of bizarre and twisted sublimated notion of superiority.Human history all over the world is rife with genocides, slavery, torture, forced expulsions, institutionalized discrimination and hateful treatment of minorities, and notions of ethnic supremacy. America isn't the slightest bit special in that regard. Every nation on Earth is built on the blood of somebody, and most of them aren'

It's tempting to take this point of view, especially when it's your own ancestors that transgressed. But it's also important to realize when, generations later, the victims of those transgressions are still feeling their impact. It's a touchy subject and we have to guard against the language we use to talk about these things. We can't talk about sins or blame---no one is to blame for the actions of their ancestors. But I don't think it's out the question to say

"don't penalize whites for the perceived sins of some of their ancestors."The fact that you wrote "perceived sins" clearly shows your real perspective.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any of us whose ancestors didn't suffer some sort of injustice when judged by today's standards. Most of us aren't expecting to get paid for things that happened over 100 years before we were born and would get laughed at if we started demanding reparations. Why is slavery in the US viewed through this special lens where we're all supposed to take the idea of compensation for great-great-great-great-grandchildren seriously?

Your ego is getting in the way of seeing the facts friend. Just because it happened before your lifetime doesn’t make it somehow less of an atrocity. US was founded on slavery and genocide. Now we outsource genocide for oil, and do slave labor in our prisons in accordance with the 13th amendment.

Why is reparations even being discussed. It's just wrong on so many levels.Society changes, things that were acceptable now aren't, we can't retroactively villify all acts we now deem unacceptable. What we should be concerned with is the here and now. If there's a proposal to increase equality in the here and now I'll listen to it. Saying your great great great grand parent was a slave doesn't make that case.Second why just black people. As far as I can go bac

Yes and no. The history is pretty fucked, but on the other hand nobody currently alive screwed them over. In a lot of cases, people's ancestors weren't even living here back then. I think that it's not as fair in light of the lack of culpability.

So you are saying that we should treat entire classes of modern people differently based on the events involving ancestors with similar superficial characteristics like skin color and sex.Your excuse is "history."I know of some other groups who have engaged in that sort of ideology. One is the KKK. The other is the Nazis. Also, the Soviets all throughout the USSR, particularly in Ukraine.Not doing this is essentially breaking someone's leg before a sprint, and w

"White people" is a vast generalization, it includes people that came in US much later than the history you are talking about. How can you even consider punishing them for something they did not do, just because they are the same race as the people that did something bad a long time ago? This is racism in the purest form.

so you agree colonialism is wrong, but will not denounce modern colonialism because the usa eliminated indigenous people in the past? colonialism is only wrong if done by the us?and if we need a pristine past to denounce modern injustice, then that is a recipe to accomodate every injustice that comes our way