| JuliusHackebeil said: I think I get the sentiment. In the past people did things wrong in one way. So you want to do things wrong in another to make everything right. I would argue that we should do things right now, because you cannot make good on past wrongs with more wrongs (like discriminating against people on the basis of their race, like lowered standards for colledge admissions (USA killed that thankfully, even though in practice it is still a problem), like hiring just from the minoritiy pool (as Britain did for government jobs the last two decades), etc.). I even could be wrong about past injustices being insignificant for black peoples wealth in the USA today. (Even though it is almost insignificant for your wealth if one of your grandparents were wealthy.) Perhaps those past injustices are actually significant. But what to do about it? Envourage racist policy? I don't think that is the righ way when so many others also suffered from various injustices. I think you would agree that there are many, many poor people, who are poor because they faced injustices, not because of their own doing. So why concentrate so much on the supposed reason for people being poor and helping just those specific ones for those specific reasons? I would say we should try help everybody irrespective of their skin colour. (Even though you could argue that the reason for the black plight in the USA is important for helping them effectively. Unemployment was low. Family cohesion was high. Violent crime was low. And then the wellfare state came in. And after I don't know how many billions, nothing is better. Quite to the contrary.) "we can't expect meritocracy to bloom out of society that had its thumb on the scale for hundreds of years" -"had"- past tense. We cannot expect meritocracy to bloom out of society that favours one group over another on the basis of their skin colour. "we clearly are not there yet" -How do you come to this conclusion? Because of different outcomes? Since that tells you fairly little. "So, we have a responsibility to set those communities back onto a path where they are able to get out of society what they put in." -This is a too tribal mindset for me. My responsibilities are not to one community over another, only to my fellow citizens. And how do you know that any community does not get out what they put in? Different outcomes again? "we have a specific responsibility to the people suffering under the unjust actions of the government of the past." -This responsibility only extends to making the government just. Not to overcorrect for poeple with a victim complex. "the increased proportion of black Americans in the criminal justice system is in itself in no small part a symptom of discrimination and past racism" -I think people are in prison because they commit crimes. And black people are free not to commit them. When Roland Fryer (the ex Harvard prof) talked about his cousins, he said they were in prison on purpose, to get cool tattoos. And why is it that so many Africans (I read a statistic about Nigerians in particular) and Asians coming to the USA much later, that lived there in extreme poverty for only one generation, are now better off than most black poeple who already lived in that country, this time with a big headstart on their part (with Asians doing even better than white people)? No racist can see the difference between a black person in the country for one generation vs 6 generations. Ultimately I think we should concentrate on what is effective. The single biggest predictor for success is if you had both your parents at home. So this is what we should promote as a nation - family cohesion, not handouts that have not been effecitve so far in closing any gap. Quite the contrary. |
There's nothing wrong about rectifying old wrongs. We see it all the time in legal disputes with the government. The government is found to have done something wrong and thus is forced to often pay a fine to rectify those wrongs. As the government gets its revenue from taxpayers who were not involved in the situation, you could reasonably state that in order to right the wrong of government misdeeds, an innocent party is being forced to pay a fine.
Is this wrong?
Imagine a scenario where when the government violates someone's rights, instead of facing any consequences, they just say "We won't do it again". What worth is a right that isn't defended? What force is there to actually prevent them from doing it again?
Regarding slavery and Jim Crow, the government did something wrong, and the effects of those misdeeds are still being felt. It has a responsibility to right those wrongs. There is nothing immoral about that.
