Reparations seems like a nonstarter but the rest of these are happening, to various degrees, at the state level in blue states
I think reparations are possible, we have to organize and do more than just voting to make it happen though.
I imagine the hardest part would be determining who was harmed by slavery given that not everyone has records of it. I think it would be nice to do to put that shameful chapter of history behind us. Whatever dollar amount we come up with probably wouldn’t be sufficient for the generational wealth destroyed, but it would be an attempt at doing better and very symbolic.
I don’t think reparations would work as direct cash payments, I think they would work best as investments into black communities. Your reasoning is exactly why I support reparations though. We cannot fix the harm, but we can try to make it right.
An example of what you discuss shows in the reparations to the Seminole tribe. Many freed slaves or escaped slaves never signed documentation (like a census for the tribe) as they were more worried about getting found/cheated etc. Last I knew there were court cases still open or closed in the past couple decades pertaining to such.
You’d need to mitigate the reparations paid by also calculating the generational loss of wealth over the same period by “unaffected” citizens.
What reparations should be paid for is for red lining, as that is a problem that is arguably still ongoing and which has impacts on today’s generational wealth recently enough to not have been reduced by the average loss of wealth over generational entropy, not to mention the parallel to the original promise of reparations “40 acres and a mule”, not sure how many urban black families would be looking forward to having basically a horse to now take care of but the value of land they were denied access to is deffo something that american black families would be greatly advanced by.
If you really want to fuel the GOP, pass some reparations that cross generational lines. They will immediately point out how some recipients are squandering the money. Resentment will build. It will ignite latent racism. And then the Indigenous Peoples will want the same deal, and the Chinese, and then everyone who had a female ancestor treated as an inferior human will want their cut! You make one minority segment happy while sowing discontent among the rest. Reparations that are not directly related to the wrongs done to an individual are a slippery slope. There are better ways to deal with the inequities of the past.
I have an ancestors who was owed money from the king of England for a loan made in the 1700s. The bank handling the account said that the money had to be evenly divided among the descends. What started out as a literal kings ransom got down to under $10 when divided evenly.
The original slavey reparations was an acre of land and a mule. Divided equally, even assuming multiple slave ancestors, would be a few square feet and just enough mule hair to make brush. Reparations done on the scale of harm done equally divided would be insulting. Making things better for everyone is a much easier sell.
